From Garages to New Homes (From Watford Observer)

From Garages to New Homes

9:07am Thursday 15th March 2012 in Trusty House By Trusty House

I could not contain my excitement when I heard that Watford Borough Council’s Planning Committee have given us approval regarding our proposals to increase our housing stock and build 16 houses and flats on 3 of our garage sites at Croxley View. Not only will this enable us to build much needed housing, after all, it’s definitely no secret that there is a shortage of housing in Watford with so many people on the housing waiting list. This will also address some of the problems of nuisance behaviour which the garages attracted.

We have also been building 12 new family homes at Foxhill and these are about to be completed. They consist of 2, 3 and 4 bedroom homes and residents will be moving in very soon. We are also completing a ‘facelift’ of nearby existing properties, made possible through our Better Communities Fund.

During construction the Better Communities Fund and our Development Team worked together to offer the opportunity for local residents to gain paid work experience in a variety of construction related disciplines. This scheme has been an amazing success and is something we intend to offer on all our new build projects in the future.

We also held a 2nd consultation with the residents on the other aspect of the garage review where we are refurbishing some garages and demolishing others to create additional parking.

Residents who currently rent a garage were able to see which ones are being retained and could choose which of the refurbished garages they wanted. This week we have also started demolishing garages in Hillside Close and Haines Way which will provide additional parking for residents.

If you would like to find out any more about any of the above, or for anything happening at the Trust, please contact me on trusty.house@wcht.org.uk or on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/WatfordCommunityHousingTrust.

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