Completed Developments

Independent Living Schemes

East Stour Court, Ashford

A major landmark in Ashford Borough Council's multi-million pound modernisation plan for its sheltered housing schemes saw the re-opening of the £7.1m East Stour Court in September 2021.

Located at Mabledon Avenue, the new look East Stour Court provides 29 homes for affordable rent for older people, comprising 24 one bedroom and 5 two bedroom apartments, built to a high quality that are care ready.

East Stour Court enjoys a range of high quality modern facilities.  There is a large cosy communal lounge and kitchen, laundry room, buggy store and cycle racks.  A real community feel is fostered by the inclusion of shared facilities, including "hubs" or sub lounges, in addition to the main communal lounge located on the ground floor.

Just as much care and thought has gone into designing the exterior spaces.  The architect designed landscaped garden spaces have a large potting shed and raised beds for residents to use, all connected with wheelchair friendly wide paved paths.

The building is designed to be dementia friendly throughout, taking into account colour schemes, light, corridor lengths, patterns and memory shelves.  The project has cost around £7.1m, paid for through the councils housing revenue account and grant funding from Homes England equal to £39,177 per apartment.

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Berry Place

Berry Place is located on Beaver Lane in South Ashford and provides 31 homes for affordable rent for older people, comprising 15 one bedroom and 16 two bedroom apartments, built to a high quality that are care ready.  This means residents should not have to move if faced with deteriorating health in later life.

The stunning development has replaced an outdated scheme at The Poplars and will provide exceptional homes for the new residents.  Work started in February 2020 and was completed in March 2022 and is modelled on the multi-award winning Farrow Court independent living scheme developed in South Ashford and the Danemore scheme in Tenterden.

The residents of Berry Place enjoy high quality modern facilities with a stunning communal lounge and kitchen, a buggy store as well as shared facilities including sub lounges which are a feature of developing to the HAPPI standards that are best practice for this tenure of accommodation.  It has been designed to maximise natural daylight in each home and through the many shared spaces.  

There are architect landscaped garden spaces, all connected with wheelchair friendly wide paved paths.

As with East Stour Court, security and connectivity were high priorities - the scheme has the same system in place to ensure resident feel confident in their new home.

Berry Place is designed to feel dementia friendly and will be home to those manly aged 50 and above, some of whom will have an assessed need for level access accommodation.  Those aged under 50 with an assessed need for this accommodation can be housed her too.

The project cost £7.9m, which was 2.4% under budget.  It has been paid for through the council's housing revenue account and grant funding from Homes England equal to £45,000 per apartment.  Including Berry Place, East Stour Court and a general needs scheme at Halstow Way, the council has successfully secured more than £3m of Homes England funding.

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Building back greener...

East Stour Court and Berry Place have admirable green credentials, including:

- EPC ratings of B and the Environmental Impact Rating B

- The fabric first approach we have used with thermal elements stops heat escaping and has high levels of airtightness.

-The double glazed composite windows used are fully recyclable, environmentally friendly, energy efficient, sustainably sourced, low maintenance and cost efficient over their lifetime.

-Underfloor heating is energy efficient, cheaper to run (up to 25% more efficient than conventional radiators) and distributes heat evenly around each room.

-A centralised low-energy extract system ventilates each property entirely without the need to install individual extractor fans.

-Low energy LED lighting is used throughout.

-Communal heating and hot water is 25% more efficient than individual boilers.

-More than 20 305w Solar PV panels are installed on the roof.

-East Stour Court and Berry Place have electric vehicle charging points.

-There will be reduced water consumption through the use of low flow taps and dual flush toilets.

-At East Stour Court, to improve biodiversity, a landscape architect was brought on board to create a landscaping scheme to support and encourage biodiversity of plants and animals.  This is achieved by diversifying the range of habitats or vegetation on site.

General Need Schemes

The Brickworks Halstow Way

The Brickworks is a stunning development comprising of 17 apartments; 6 x one bedroom, 7 x two bedrooms and 4 x duplex three bedroom home.

The project cost £4.3m, with Homes England grants of £60,000 per unit in order to deliver the homes at social rent levels.  Funds have been ring fenced from s106 agreements for play facilities in the locality.

The fabric first approach we have used with thermal elements stops heat escaping and has high levels of airtightness.  The double glazed composite windows have same properties as used in East Stour Court and Berry Place - they are energy efficient, fully recyclable and environmentally friendly as well as being cost efficient.  There are also four double electric vehicle charging points.

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Short Stay Accommodation

Christchurch Lodge, South Ashford

This is a renovation and  provides short stay accommodation for homeless families to reduce the use of nightly paid accommodation.  Technically the renovation uses an innovative multi foil insulation system which has helped to achieve CO2 reductions over Building Regulation requirements in the region of 20%.

The large disused home in Beaver Lane was purchased for £430,000 and after investment or around £500,000 it was converted into eight homes, capable of accommodating up to 25 people.  The refurbishment programme included adding facilities like a communal kitchen, dining room and laundry room.

Christchurch Lodge follows the same blueprint adopted by the council when it created Christchurch House, a rundown property bought at auction for £278,000 in 2013.  It was transformed into good quality short-stay accommodation and was so successful that the money saved on placing homeless people in costly B&Bs meant that Christchurch House paid for itself in four years.

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In Development 

The developments below are awaiting a decision from the planning committee.  All of our proposed schemes have to be heard by the planning committee for transparency reasons.  We would not appeal if they refused one of our applications.

Harper Road

The proposed site in Harper Road, South Ashford, consists of 24 garages surrounded on three sides by 2-storey housing and opposite a 3-storey apartment building at Little Knoll.  There is another garage site behind houses on the opposite side of the road.  The area has a mix of tenures, including privately owned, social and affordable housing.  In the vicinity there is a primary school with a "Good£ Ofsted rating, a children's centre, shops, food and drink establishments as well as the large green space provided at Victoria Park.

We would like to develop this site for affordable housing.  The proposal is for four 2 bedroom houses.  The intention is that they will be allocated to people on our housing waiting list needing social and affordable rental homes.  We will aim to set affordable rent levels on these homes that are around 60-80% of market rent levels in the area.  This is to ensure the homes are genuinely affordable to those who are housed in them.  These levels will be within the Local Housing Allowance.

Plantation Close

The proposed site in Plantation Close, Hothfield, consists of 22 garages, of which 11 are let, overlooked by houses on all sides.  To the south of the site there are semi detached bungalows, and to the north 2 storey terraced houses.  There is pedestrian access from Plantation Close through to School Road.  In the vicinity there is a children's centre, post office and village hall, as well as Hothfield heathland.

We are keen to develop this site for affordable housing.  The proposal is for four 1 bedroom wheelchair accessible bungalows.  The intention is that they will be allocated to people on our housing waiting list, with an affordable rent set between 60-80% of market rent levels in the area.

Oakleigh House

Oakleigh House was built in the 1970s and comprised of 32 units, 20 of which were one bedroom accommodation and 12 were bedsits.

As it currently stands, Oakleigh House is a tired old building which looks uninspiring.  Inside, it had become dated and tough to maintain.  Though it was fit for purpose when it was constructed, its best days were behind it - the building was a maze of narrow dark corridors and on different levels which is not ideal for those with mobility impairments.  The residents of Oakleigh moved out late 2020, after we discussed with them the proposals to pull down the existing structure and replace it with a brand new building that met the needs of older people in the 21st century.

The existing building does not make best use of the "footprint" of the land on which it sits.  The video and images that accompany this consultation show that the expanse of land that the council owns could be better used to deliver a bigger scheme that would be a real asset to the area, possibly featuring community space.  

The smaller patch of land opposite the site is also being looked at for development purposes for this scheme.  At Farrow Court, also in South Ashford, the older persons accommodation is joined by some accommodation for people with learning difficulties.  Cherry Tree Court is a very successful scheme, offering the chance of independent living to many.  We would seek to replicate this type of scheme on the smaller patch of land opposite Watercress Lane.

Therefore the proposal is to replace the existing structures and build in its place a brand new scheme that will contain 69 dwellings:

- 51 independent apartments for older people (36 x one bedroom and 15 x two bedroom)

- 3 independent cottages (all one bedroom)

- 15 independent apartments for adults with learning disabilities (14 x one bedroom and 1 x two bedroom)

Delivery

Since 2011 we have delivered 510 homes, which are set out in the table below.

Since 2011 we have enabled the delivery of 1149 homes, with 520 of these since 2018 below: