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New homes for March site will all be 'affordable'




A developer planning to build 48 homes in March says they do not need to contribute to the town's infra-structure needs because the houses will all be affordable.

Andy Brand has applied for permission on behalf of Abbey Properties Cambridgeshire to build the two, three and four-bedroom houses on land off Wimblington Road.

The development will be delivered by Accent Group, a firm who specialise in providing affordable housing.

Plans have gone in for 48 affordable homes in March. (62872761)
Plans have gone in for 48 affordable homes in March. (62872761)

A planning, design and access statement submitted in support of the application, explains the 1.88 hectares site is within a broad location of growth within the adopted Fenland Plan.

Access to the site will be off Wimblington Road and discussions have been held to determine the layout of this.

As well as the homes there will be public open space within the central part of the development.

The statement argues the homes will help Fenland District council achieve its planned delivery of 4,200 new dwellings in March between 2011 and 2031 and points out that to date only 431 have been built - which represents just over 10% of the housing requirement under the local plan.

To meet its target by 2031 (when the Local Plan ends) 377 new dwellings will need to be delivered each yeat from 2021 to 2031.

Council policy is that a minimum of 20% of houses on sites of 10 or more dwellings should be affordable but the statement points out that this requirement is irrelevant because Accent has devised a mix of properties and 100% of them will be affordable.

It goes on to point out that a viability assessment of the site and the proposed development concluded that no affordable housing should be delivered as part of this scheme - therefore Accent is essentially volunteering to deliver affordable homes.

The viability assessment was carried out by Maxey Grounds who concluded that if the scheme had to provide 20% affordable homes and Section 106 cash (to pay for local services such as schools and health) of £650,273 there would be a financial deficit on the development of almost £1.5m.

Even with no affordable housing of S106 contributions they concluded the deficit would be £419,910.

The report concludes: "If the requirement for affordable housing and cash contributions were removed, the site still

appears non-viable unless the developer is to accept a profit level below 15%. In a situation where delivery is intended as a grant funded wholly affordable scheme, delivery on a marginal basis such as this may be possible. It is unlikely a developer would be able to deliver a market scheme on this basis."



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