40 per cent of Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz’s promised new homes are now in progress.
Newham Council’s major new council homes programme has moved another significant step forward with the granting of planning permission to build a further 124 affordable homes. This means that 40 per cent of the new homes which Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz promised are now in progress.
Eight planning permissions have been granted for new high quality affordable homes to be built in Canning Town, East Ham, Forest Gate, Little Ilford and Maryland. All of the homes will be built on the sites of former garages (many of these attracted anti-social behaviour), with the exceptions of Plaistow, which was the site of a former housing office, and East Ham, which was formerly a car park.
Rokhsana Fiaz, the Mayor of Newham, said “This is another major milestone in my drive to tackle the housing crisis in Newham through an ambitious council house-building programme. I pledged to build at least 1,000 new genuinely affordable homes over my four year term.
“Not only do we now have 261 affordable homes on site, but these new planning permissions mean we have secured a total of 174 planning permissions. This takes the number of new council homes planned to 435 – 40% of the homes which I promised and all in less than two years.”
These homes form part of the Affordable Homes for Newham programme, which was established to deliver on the Mayor of Newham’s pledge for 1,000 council-owned homes to be started by March 2022. The Mayor of London has awarded a grant of £107 million towards the delivery of these homes.
Key features of the homes is ensuring that they are highly energy efficient, helping residents to save on their heating bills and so minimise fuel poverty.
Work will start this year and all the homes will be completed by 2022.