June 2020
Hello from the Directors to all our Members and those interested in Salcombe Community Land Trust
It has been quite a long time since our last update of September 2019, and unfortunately we cannot hold a Public Meeting, as much as we would like to, due to the current Covid-19 restrictions, so we thought we would send this Newsletter out to you all. We have, nevertheless, been kept remarkably busy during this lockdown and there is much to report!
After our First Public Meeting we put out a general call for land and we also wrote to local landowners in the hope that might bear fruit, so to speak, and we were delighted when we received a positive response.
After many meetings and discussions with the landowners we are now in a position to announce that we have identified a possible site for our first social housing project, and because of this we have succeeded in drawing down the second tranche of our Grant from the Community Housing Fund, Homes England.
As a result, the relevant professionals were instructed and they have now completed their reports for our feasibility study, which means that we are now only weeks away from submitting our pre-planning application.
This is all extremely exciting and, we believe, some much needed good news amidst all the Covid-19 gloom. It really does look as though Salcombe is going to get some genuinely affordable rented dwellings in the near future, which we all know it desperately needs. It will not fulfil our housing need by any means, but it will be an extremely positive start.
However, as you can imagine, there is a lot more to do before we get there!
We are going into partnership with south west based Aster Housing Association, who are fully capitalised and triple ‘A’ rated by the credit rating agency, Standard & Poor’s. Aster will develop the dwellings alongside SCLT and our chosen architect, Bailey Partnership, and they will also manage and maintain the properties from their Plymouth office.
Although it is Aster who will allocate the properties once completed, all tenancies will be awarded according to our own Local Allocations Plan. We have worked long and hard on this Plan to ensure that mistakes made in the past will not be repeated. Aster fully supports our Allocations Plan and, while the Trustees will have no say in property allocation, we will see all the evidence submitted to prove a “Local Connection”.
The proposed site is at the top of the road to Higher Batson, next to the Bloor Homes development. Included in our professional advisers are horticultural and ecological advisers, who are helping the architects come up with a plan we hope will minimise the impact of this desperately needed housing.
If you have any comments to make, please email us at: info@salcombeclt.com