On Home Ground How Broadacres Housing Association is helping rural communities thrive
Sowerby Gateway Site
uring the last few years it has become increasingly difficult for young people to get on the property ladder. Here in North Yorkshire, second-homers and buyto-letters have been snapping up desirable country cottages. The pandemic has piled on the pressure still further as urban professionals with deep pockets – now geared up to working from home – seek to flee the cities in search of rural seclusion. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Northallertonbased Broadacres Housing Association is one of the local organisations fighting to redress the balance. This innovative, not-for-profit business manages more than 6,500 rental and shared-ownership properties in Richmondshire, Hambleton, Darlington, Harrogate, the North Yorkshire Moors and elsewhere in the North East. And they are looking to invest millions more in affordable housing in years to come – both new-builds and sympathetic refurbishments of existing properties.
KEEPING IT LOCAL “Having affordable local housing gives the younger generation a chance to live where they grew up and where they work, and – via shared ownership – to get a foot on the housing ladder,” says Broadacres’ Sales and Marketing Manager Maria Baker. “It keeps rural communities alive.” Projects currently in hand include a £9.2 million affordable housing development on the site of the former Tall Trees hotel and nightclub in Yarm. Here Broadacres will be building 79 homes for affordable rent, with a further 35 properties to be offered for sale – including shared-ownership sales – by Broadacres’ private development arm, Mulberry Homes Yorkshire. Profits from sales like these are used to support the development of new rented homes. Another current Broadacres project is in Sedbergh, where plans are afoot to create 50 homes, stone-built and rendered in keeping with the local architecture, 34 of which will be for affordable rent and shared ownership, with people in Sedbergh and surrounding communities being given first refusal on these properties.
Dales Life | SPRING 2022 |
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