Guiding lights

National Housing Week promotes best practice in the housing sector, and this year is highlighting the work of the four councils who achieved beacon status for ‘homes of the future’.

Best practice body the Improvement and Development Agency runs the beacon scheme, and the homes of the future theme comes from its latest round. The achievements of the four councils that achieved recognition – Sheffield City, Bolton, St Helens and Greenwich – are detailed below.

Sheffield City Council

Sheffield City Council was highlighted for its ambitious regeneration scheme of the Scowerdons, Weakland and Newstead estates, over 800 non-traditional constructions that were built in the sixties and had come to be in frequent disrepair.

Rather than refurbish the still-popular estates, Sheffield council elected to do a phased demolition and redevelopment of the area in 2003. The thought behind this decision was to provide a more sustainable and longer-term stock of housing than could be obtained by attempting to improve upon the existing estates.

The council was also recognised for another key part of its housing approach, resident involvement.

The plans for the new development include 1,039 new, sustainable and mixed tenure homes, over half of which will be affordable housing or for shared ownership.

Work began on the new estate in spring 2008 and the first new homes became available this January.

Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council

Bolton Council was commended for ‘achieving real change through new sites and rejuvenation of existing stock’ and undertaking ‘groundbreaking projects’ to create mixed communities.

It was recognised for re-envisioning two separate troubled developments, Skagen Court and Clare Court, into one new site, the Mere and Benjamin Court, aimed at creating a mixed, sustainable community.

Skagen Court was a quadrangle of flats built in the sixties and fell short of decency standards. The council redeveloped the building into the Mere, a mixture of 107 town houses, apartments and bungalows available for rent, shared ownership and outright sale.

Clare Court, a homelessness hostel deemed not fit for purpose, was sold and the part of the capital received was put towards the financing of a new hostel, Benjamin Court, on part of the old Skagen Court site. 

St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council

St Helens received beacon recognition for combining efforts to address the community’s housing need with efforts to deal with industrial decline.

The council recently began undertaking efforts to redevelop the declining industrial buildings of the former Vulcan Workers Foundry site into high-quality sustainable housing.

The new development is one of three ‘urban villages’ in St Helens. The council hopes the villages will be sites for residents ‘to live work, and play’. Their plans for the Vulcan Works site include renovating a nearby sports facility, constructing a play area for children and a new centre for businesses.

The development is to be modelled after existing building styles in the community with a ‘medieval core’ but ‘character from 19^th century Georgian and Victorian townhouses, villas and workers cottages’. It also aims to be widely-accessible with several planned amenities meant to cater to children, the elderly and the disabled.

London Borough of Greenwich Council

Greenwich drew praise for its mixed-use developments Greenwich Peninsula and Greenwich Millennium Village. The peninsula development is on what was once the site of a derelict gas works and is now one of the largest mixed-use developments in Europe. In the next decade, the council expects it to house 25,000 people, and employ 20,000 in its commercial district.

The Millennium Village offers 3,000 mixed tenure homes and ‘set new standards’ for sustainability.

The council’s partnerships with other organisations were also noted, including local businesses and regional governments. The council said these partnerships allowed for accomplishments such as the opening of the 02 arenas and the creation of Peninsula Square, a gathering place for residents.