Mayor backs affordable retirement homes in Warwickshire

Older people in a Warwickshire village are to get the opportunity to continue living in their local community during retirement, thanks to an investment by Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands.

More than 42 affordable retirement homes are to be built on the site of the former New Inn pub in Rugby Road, Bulkington following £660,000 funding from the Mayor.

The apartments are being built by Keon Homes and once completed will be made available for the over 55s by housing association Midland Heart at affordable rents.

The announcement is the latest to be made by the Mayor as part of his drive to accelerate the construction of affordable new homes to help tackle the region’s housing crisis.

A CGI of how the new retirement homes will look

The investment is from the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) brownfield regeneration fund, which is focused on redeveloping derelict sites, often referred to as brownfield land, for homes that are genuinely affordable for local people.

The Mayor said: “For too many years, there hasn’t been nearly enough investment in social and affordable housing, which has left us with an acute shortage of safe, warm homes that older and more vulnerable people can afford.

“We need to fix the mistakes of the past by rebuilding our affordable housing stock and we’re doing that through schemes like this one at Bulkington.

“It will provide genuinely affordable homes for older people, breathe new life into a derelict site, and create valuable jobs for local people. This is about rebuilding communities and giving people places they can feel connected to and proud of.”

The New Inn pub dated back to the early 1900s but closed in 2016 and was later demolished.

In its place will be apartments featuring energy efficient all-electric heating and solar panels, helping to keep fuel costs down for residents. There will also be charging points for electric cars.

More than 110 jobs will be created or safeguarded by the scheme including 15 apprentices working on site, five of which will be new roles.

Joe Reeves, deputy chief executive of Midland Heart, said: “This is exactly the kind of development we need to see more of – a disused site brought back into use to provide high-quality, affordable homes for older people in the heart of the community.

“At Midland Heart, we’re committed to building 2,750 new homes across the Midlands over the next five years, and developments like this help ensure more people can stay close to the communities they call home.”

Matt Beckley, partnerships director at Keon Homes, concluded: “Our business has been built on ‘brownfield first’, taking on complex sites and transforming them into communities that people are proud to call their home.

“We are really pleased to be strengthening our relationships with the West Midlands Combined Authority and Midland Heart to deliver high quality, energy efficient affordable housing in Bedworth - a town that desperately needs it.”

The WMCA’s brownfield regeneration funds are used to support a wide range of housing and regeneration projects – from the restoration and conversion of unique heritage buildings into new homes to mixed use developments around key transport hubs and town centres.

Access to the WMCA funding was provided by the Property Team at Frontier Development Capital Ltd (FDC) which works closely with property developers to arrange investments from the WMCA's regeneration funds.