Grant of £685k to be used towards 49 new council homes

Thanet council wants to build 12 of the 49 new homes on land at Tomlin Drive (Image Hazle McCormack Young LLP (HMY))

Thanet council has been allocated £685,275 of government funding  which will be used to support the building of homes on brownfield sites

The funding, through the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) Brownfield Land Release Fund, will go towards phase four of the council’s programme to with 49 new homes being built. They will form part of the council’s social housing stock and will be rented out to households on the housing register.

Locations have been identified at Tomlin Drive, Dane Valley Road and the former Dane Valley Arms site in Margate, and Staner Court and Clements Road in Ramsgate. All of these are brownfield sites, which means the land has been previously developed. They are all owned by the council, and currently have either disused garages or laundry drying areas on them.

Cllr Helen Whitehead, Cabinet Member for Housing with at Thanet District Council, said: “As a council we will always prioritise brownfield development, and we take active measures to do so, including the excellent work that went into applying for this fund by council officers.

“Residents need social and genuinely affordable housing, and we will prioritise this need to support all of our community. We are dedicated to providing genuinely affordable homes for local people, with over a hundred homes due to be acquired or delivered before the end of this year. This funding will enable us to directly build a significant number of new properties, which will make a huge difference to residents and to Thanet.”

The developments are all subject to planning permission. Applications have been submitted to the council’s planning department and it is expected that work will begin in spring 2024, and be completed by spring 2026.

Nearly 100 regeneration projects across England will receive a share of £60 million funding as part of the second phase of the government’s £180 million Brownfield Land Release Fund.

Plans for new council homes at Tomlin Drive and former Dane Valley Arms

Council plans for 11 new homes on land at Staner Court

34 Comments

  1. Lying TDC. When they demolished the burnt out Dane Valley Arms, they claimed on their Twitter account that a new pub would be built in its place.

  2. It is not as simple as it seems.Brownfield land is often where there is or was a structure such as a pub,but it may be a part of a development that was not built or an abandoned transport project or permanent way.
    Politicians bang on about building on brownfield sites, but will object if the brownfield site is in the greenbelt or where nature has been given time to colonise the land.brownfield land is more expensive to develop which means in areas where land prices are relatively low viability is an issue.
    TDC need to crack on with the houses forget Checksfield we need houses more than pubs at the moment.

  3. Wait for labour…Starmer said today he is going to ignore local opposition to planning and just bulldozed 1.5 million houses thru….

  4. Two cheers for this. We need lots more Council homes and this is obviously a step in the correct way of increasing desperately needed Council housing. We just need a helluva lot more!

  5. No I don’t have to defend anything and Checksfield have you not heard of defamation.I suspect if it was the old gang you would be saying that building houses here is a good thing.
    As for Starmer he should be holding the ring between developers who want to build minimal spec housing at maximum value and with minimal infrastructure and the environment.In any case, we need social housing, not affordable housing or 4/5 bedroom low intensity housing.
    I suspect many here have secure,well maintained housing,many do not.
    Nokesy is not impressed by those moaning about social housing on a brownfield site,so perhaps Starmer has a point, about cracking on with housebuilding.You can bang on about how there is empty housing or that we are building on the countryside,but none of that answers the question about housing need.
    Land is wasted,one need only look at Westwood Cross,which is a perfect example of car dependent urban sprawl.look at the acres covered in non permeable tarmac which absorbs heat and is carbon intensive.
    We need to plan better,tame the car a little,not a lot and build better and more intensively.

  6. Would this be the some of the same homes that were announced in June for Ukrainian and Afghanistan refugees? There is nothing mentioned about that above but it sounds the same project. If so then won’t these homes not benefit vulnerable local residents already on the council housing waiting list? The Government stipulates they must be used this way for 3 years but once let out they won’t become available again for many more years.
    It would be useful to clarify this point.

    • No – that was 9 homes and was a specific government package.
      What do you think will happen to these home once the refugees have gone home? They will become council houses.
      I appreciate you trying to be negative but you’ll struggle.
      The Labour-led TDC has already provided more houses in 6 months than the last administration did during its entire time in office.
      A party of power not protest.

    • “Thanetian Blind” was referring to the cost of rail tickets. It’s pretty clear that Ms Rees’ response was about that.

  7. Nice, although that’s roughly half the amount allocated for houses for refugees in Thanet.

    Priorities.

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