Four family homes for social rent in Harpenden are completed
Four family-sized homes for social rent have been provided in Harpenden by St Albans City and District Council.
The three-bedroom properties were offered to people on the Council’s Housing Register who need larger accommodation.
Four two-bedroom Council houses, where the new tenants previously lived, are now available to people on the Register who have been waiting for a permanent home of their own.
The new semi-detached houses in Viking Close, off Noke Shot, were built in a little used garage site owned by the Council.
They have been equipped with several sustainable features to reduce harmful carbon emissions.
These include air source heat pumps instead of gas boilers, solar panels and electric vehicle charging points.
The homes have the Government’s top energy rating of A and are likely to produce only 0.8 tonnes of carbon emissions a year compared to the household average of 6 tonnes.
Bat and bird boxes were installed and 22 trees were planted on the site to further help improve the local environment.
This is in keeping with the Council’s goal of reducing emissions across the District to net zero by 2030.
Councillor Jacqui Taylor, Lead for Housing, and Councillor Paul De Kort, Lead for Resources, enjoyed a tour of the homes.
Cllr Taylor said:
One of our priorities as a Council is to provide more social housing in the District.
The outstanding, high-quality homes we have delivered in Viking Close is a demonstration of that commitment.
I am delighted that four growing households now have the homes they need while four other households on our Housing Register can move into the homes they have vacated.
Cllr De Kort said:
These houses have been delivered by us despite the financial pressures that we are faced with in common with other local authorities.
It is so important to provide new social housing in an area like Harpenden where house prices are extremely high and out of the reach of most people.
As a Council, we have produced more than 70 social rent homes in the past ten years across the District on former garage sites.
In doing so, we have also placed an emphasis on sustainability as the solar panels and air source heat pumps at Viking Close show.
Pictures: top, Cllr Taylor, 4th from left, and Cllr De Kort, 3rd from left, at Viking Close with new tenants, from the left, Mohammed Ahmed, Hachemi Mansour and Parvaj Ahmed; bottom, Cllr Taylor with Cllr De Kort.
Contact for the media: John McJannet, Principal Communications Officer: 01727-819533, john.mcjannet@stalbans.gov.uk.