Families to be moved as part of Berkshire housing regeneration
Wokingham Borough Council will demolish 178 run-down houses
Last updated 29th Mar 2021
More than 150 families are being moved out of an estate ahead of a major redevelopment.
Wokingham Borough Council plans to demolish 178 run-down houses and bungalows at Gorse Ride South in Finchampstead and replace them with 249 new homes, as part of a £30 million regeneration.
According to the council, the prefabricated homes were only expected to last for around 40 years when they were built in the 1970s and it “is not economically viable” to try and repair them.
The council has offered everyone currently living on the estate the chance to move into one of the new homes and states that 185 of them will be affordable.
Cllr John Kaiser, deputy leader of the council, said:
“We are now on phase two of Gorse Ride.
“It involves decanting 160 families from their homes and putting them in other homes.
“Some of those families will want to come back to new homes and some of those families will want to go live somewhere else in the borough, so it’s extremely complicated.
“We intend it to be a flagship development.”
“We’ve appointed the contractors and we hope that by moving the decant forward, we can accelerate the time so the ones who want to get back onto the estate can come back.”
The council owns the majority of the estate in Finchampstead, but does not own 19 homes, so it has agreed to use a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) if the homeowners do not agree to sell.
In January, Cllr Kaiser said the CPO will only be used “in very extreme circumstances” when the council has “exhausted all other means of negotiation”.
People currently living on the estate have been offered a home loss payment, that is 10 per cent of the value of their home, as well as disturbance payments that can be used to cover the cost of moving and legal fees.
An interest-free loan scheme has also been set up, which allows people to borrow up to £150,000 so they can buy a new property.