25 Mar City & Country Hand Over First Housing Association Properties to New Residents
Award-winning Essex-based developer, City & Country, has handed over the first tranche of new affordable homes to proud residents at its Sanderling Reach development, on the iconic Mersea island.
30 homes in total, this is the first partnership of its kind for City & Country, who are proud to be producing homes for the local West Mersea community. The homes, known as Brierley Paddocks, have been constructed for local Housing Association CHP, based in Chelmsford.
Recently, 19 homes were completed and handed over to CHP’s first residents, offering affordable homes, set up at 80% of market rent. In total, 24 of the 30 homes available will be offered under this scheme, with the remaining six offered for sale on a shared ownership basis.
In addition to offering affordable housing for the local community, the homes have been built to reflect the surrounding Essex architecture using timber frames, making the development more sustainable and contributing to the developments and partners’ sustainability goals.
“It is a great honour to be building homes for the local community”, says City & Country Managing Director Wayne Douglas. “This is the first partnership of its kind for us, and it is extremely rewarding to see the delight on residents’ faces when they move in.”
Fiona Hollingsworth, Growth and Partnership Director at CHP said: “We’re really pleased to be providing much needed housing for local people on Mersea Island for the first time and proud to be partnering with City & Country.
“We are committed to providing homes which are not only affordable for people to live in but are also more energy efficient and sustainable too. It’s important to us to build decent homes that people want to live in”.
Fiona Hollingsworth and Growth and Development Manager Becky Jay from CHP, Marco Sidoli, Regional Development Director (East) and Lee Kirkland, Design Manager from City & Country and Cllr Paul Smith, Portfolio Holder for Housing from Colchester City Council gathered to mark the occasion with a ribbon cutting at the West Mersea site.
Elsewhere at the Sanderling Reach development, City & Country has submitted a planning application to build an additional 18 homes. Six of the properties will be almshouses that City & Country proposes to build and, on completion, gift to West Mersea Town Council to provide affordable accommodation for local people.
If approved, the new homes will be built on a 0.5-hectare plot of land at the north-east of the development near Brierley Paddocks. The land currently has planning consent for commercial use, but despite extensive marketing over several years, it has attracted no viable commercial interest. During a public consultation exhibition in August 2023, feedback suggested that the provision of smaller sized new homes and bungalows would work well. A popular idea was also the construction of affordable housing for local people, particularly almshouses. These properties, once gifted, would be held in trust for the community, providing low-cost rented housing to local people with a connection to the area.
