Tomlin Drive garages to be demolished to make way for new council homes

The garages will be replaced with council homes

Thirty-six garages in Millmead are to be demolished with council housing planned for the site.

Thanet council says the  garages in Tomlin Drive are “ underused” and “currently vacant,” but regular vandalism, arson and fly-tipping has resulted in costs to the authority.

A ‘demolition document by the council says: “The current structures are in very poor condition and have been subjected to neglect and a substantial number of acts of vandalism over a sustained period of time.

“The current garages comprise the original single storey structures with asbestos containing materials (corrugated cement roofs).”

Thanet council wants to use the site for its affordable housing programme, saying: “The sites have been identified as part of TDCs Affordable Homes Programme Phase Four: a number of TDC owned underused garage sites have been identified for the purposes of redevelopment to provide additional affordable housing for households on TDC’s Housing Register.

“The new build units will be retained within TDCs housing stock and let out to households at an affordable rent.”

In 2020 the council approved capital funding of £8.822m for phase 4 of its affordable housing development programme.

A total of 70% of funding is from the Housing Revenue Account Business Plan, with the balance of 30% funding from retained right-to-buy receipts. The programme is for around 36 new homes for affordable rent for households on the council’s Housing Register. #

Since 2015 this programme will have provided 191 new, affordable homes, inclusive of the latest phase. Phase 3 provided new build homes in King Street and Sussex Street, Ramsgate.

The final part of the phase 4 programme is due for completion by March 2023.

Cllr Jill Bayford, Cabinet Member for Housing, said: “The garages on Tomlin Drive in Margate are derelict and beyond repair.

“It is proposed that the site will be used to build additional social housing with improvements to the existing landscape. We will be engaging with residents about the future use of the area.”

How do we increase affordable housing in Thanet?

30 Comments

  1. Has TDC had no brains at all in planning
    there is a waiting list for garages and look they are not given them out to people

    • I totally agree at staner court there letting the garages go into disrepair. Even though there is a waiting list for them. Lots of them are all boarded up.

    • What’s more important? Garages for the cars we are supposed to be getting rid of or badly needed SOCIAL housing? It is, unfortunately, a no-brainier to any one with any sort of social concience.
      I used to rent a garage in Millmead, it was always getting broken in to and even used as somewhere for others to dump their rubbish,. Suffice to say I do not rent now, my car is safer on the street. Those garages are nothing but a vandal’s playground and should be repurposed.
      We do not look forward to yet more housing in Thanet, this Isle is overcrowded as it is but this is by far the better of two evils and let us hope that it is local people, not DFLs, that are offered these premises’.
      By far the better of two evils.

  2. So if i’ve read the article correctly it’s costing the council 245k per house even when they already own the land? And if the council has so much in the housing revenue account why has so much been neglected in the council housing stock, Royal crescent being a prime example, doubly so as its a listed building and so the council had additional obligations.

  3. Plant some fruit trees and landscape with necessary parking. Allocate gardens to those on the ground floors. Building into this estate will just accentuate the ghettoizing of people. Find other sites to create homes. What has happened in King street in Ramsgate is horrible. Bedrooms on ground floors with windows accessible from the pavement?

    • Surely all ground floor windows are accessible from the pavement, or the front garden, which is often just a narrow strip,perhaps too narrow to be an actual garden.

  4. People moan if houses are built on farmland.

    People moan if houses are built on brownfield.

    I think people who have homes dont want others to have homes at affordable rent.

    We need homes, to build on an old derelict area like this makes sence.

    • Instead of preoccupying yourself with what you perceive to be moaning ask yourself why the spaces between blocks existed in the first place.

      You probably eat factory farmed eggs, but the birds are imprisoned and are far from happy.

      You may have heard of Parker Morris Standards too. Council houses built to those standards were relatively spacious and light and easy to heat. 6 decades on, people have significantly more stuff and storage is a problem in rabbit hutch developments.

      Anything built there will reduce family privacy and increase noise, hence another reason for greening the spaces.

      Your notion of envy of people paying affordable rents sounds to me like a personal gripe. we should all have affordable housing!

  5. First.. Par officers
    Your community votes for the councillors.. Vote them out if all they do is create the problem in first place.
    Dereliction
    Repairs our theatres suffer yet your council will not tell the truth. Bunch of liars about why derelict and repairs needed. Own up council you are not fit for purpose.

    Where is the precept for CLIFTONVILLE since 1972 you owe this town.

  6. Clare

    People do like to jump to conclusions I have had 6 rescue battery chickens. They had the freedom of our garden and would eat every plant we had lol.

    I have my own house but I see the struggles young people on minimum wage cant even afford pvt rent and cant get council houses.

    They seems to be plenty of room to build between the other houses from the photo.

    I am not keen on houses being built of farmland but have to use brownfield sites. Some people are just against building.

    But hi Claire carry on jumping to conclusions of people you dont know !

  7. So let’s make houses for people who will never contribute to the local economy, will get rates rebates, social security benefits, and contribute to the crime in the area. (not supposition, but based statistical fact) Better to provide decent housing for workers to come into the area and actually benefit the local economy and the local community. Ask why Thanet has become the dumping ground for released repeat offenders from the whole of the south East prisons and beyond, and the area that the London Boroughs trick their pensioners to move to, to free up valuable housing in their own boroughs, overloading the health and social services at the cost to the small number of actual tax and ratepayers.

  8. At last, homes for people waiting ages for a Council House, which the occupants can make it a permanent Home for themselves with security of tenure, thus
    reducing the long waiting list at the same time. Well done to the Council and everyone involved.
    th

  9. What is the point the council will build these houses but they are still selling off council housing under the scheme the Tories brought in when magie was in power . To just replace the housing stock for council hosing they would have to build a hundred thousand homes every year for the next 30 years and that is to cover homes sold off not the amount needed for social housing. Affordable housing is a joke as the average house price is in excess of two hundred and fifty thousand the people already renting homes cannot afford to save for the deposits due to the high rents being charged .

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