New residents move into affordable housing development in Dudley
West Midlands Mayor - Richard Parker went to meet them
Last updated 31st Jul 2024
Black Country families struggling to afford a decent home of their own have been handed the keys to a brand new, energy efficient property thanks to a £1 million investment by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and a strategic partnership with national housebuilder Lovell.
Residents have started moving into their new homes, on the site of the former Cookley Works steel factory in Brierley Hill, after developer Lovell completed construction work and passed the properties to Platform Housing Group.All 71 homes, which have been built on the five-acre site off Leys Road, are classed as affordable, with half the homes being offered by Platform at affordable rents and half under an affordable shared ownership scheme.
Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands and Chair of the WMCA, met with Tag Majid during a tour of the new development.
He said: “Listening to the previous experiences of those who have moved into these wonderful new homes, shows how the current housing crisis is blighting lives and holding people back.
“Cookley Works is a great example of how the public and private sectors can work together to provide good quality social housing that is genuinely affordable but we need to do so much more if we are going to change lives for the better.
“Too many people have no choice but to pay sky high rents for poor quality housing simply because there are not enough social and affordable homes being built or protected.
“That’s why I am talking with government about loosening our funding straitjacket and giving us greater flexibility in how we can use our existing multi-million-pound housing war chest.
“We want to use that money to support schemes that can deliver more social and affordable homes for those communities that need them most. This way we can begin to fix the housing crisis.”
Cookley Works had stood derelict since the last business based there closed in 2007, ending more than 150 years of steel industry on the site. The site’s owners at the time, Tata Steel, sold the site to Lovell for £4.5 million.
The WMCA’s investment was used to unlock the site for housing by cleaning up the land and making it suitable for redevelopment.
The scheme is part of the WMCA’s ‘brownfield first’ approach to housing, which targets former industrial sites and vacant urban plots for new developments, helping to drive local regeneration.
Elizabeth Froude, CEO of Platform Housing Group, said: “We are appreciative of the Mayor’s time today, as it is important those making policy decisions get the opportunity to hear from our residents about the impact all affordable Housing tenures can have to improve their quality of life.
“Cookley Works proves that with a bit of perseverance and good partners even complex sites can deliver more housing.
“We remain committed to ongoing building of quality affordable new homes across the midlands and currently have almost 1,000 more homes in the WMCA area in our pipeline for delivery in the next five years.
“The announcement by government on a rent settlement for the sector will help give certainty to support further future investment.”
Lovell agreed a landmark partnership with the WMCA in 2019 committing to deliver more than 4,000 new homes to support the region’s target of building 215,000 homes by 2031.
Stuart Penn, regional managing director at Lovell, said: “Bringing the plans for Cookley Works to fruition is a fantastic milestone for affordable and social housing in the region. We need to be unlocking more brownfield sites such as this former steel works site and building high-quality housing where they are needed most.
“Working alongside the WMCA and Platform to deliver this site demonstrates how vital public and private sector partnerships are in solving the housing crisis, providing training and skills opportunities and creating high quality jobs, and we hope to continue strengthening these partnerships on future schemes.”
Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Council, said: “As an authority that has made a clear commitment on the use of brownfield sites first, I welcome the development on the old Cookley Works.
“This is exactly the kind of approach we need from developers as we look for land for housing and employment opportunities in our borough.”