More affordable housing planned for Caerphilly

Caerphilly will have 48 new affordable homes by 2008 following a major land purchase by United Welsh.

United Welsh has bought three acres of wasteland at Pen Rhos, at the top of Nantgarw Hill, which was formerly used for tipping colliery spoil, with a £4.25 million social housing grant from the Welsh Assembly Government.

The Pen Rhos development will have a mix of properties, including 12 one-bedroom flats, 22 three-bedroom houses and 14 four-bedroom houses, which will be built to Assembly-set quality standards and available to rent at affordable rates.

United Welsh purchased the site from Hiwaun-based developers, Walters Land Ltd, who have spent two years clearing the site and carrying out substantial remediation and profiling work, as well as improvements to the highway and service infrastructure.

The announcement by United Welsh comes hot on the heels of the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report on 5 December in which he encouraged more affordable housing to be built, especially on brownfield sites like Pen Rhos, using new planning guidelines.

“Pen Rhos is both exciting and significant because it will give people access to the homes they want at a price they can afford,” said Richard Mann, director of development at United Welsh.  

“It will give more people the opportunity to stay in or move to Caerphilly, whose popularity as a place to live and work is still growing

Work on the site is due to start in October 2006, once a house builder has been appointed. The site will be completed in two phases, with the final phase set for completion in early 2008, bringing United Welsh’s total number of homes to nearly 4,000. 

Richard Mann added: “United Welsh has ambitious growth plans and we have a proactive landbanking strategy so we are constantly on the look out for potential sites ripe for development to provide more affordable homes in south Wales.”

(16th December 2005)