Oxford to get ten new council homes

The homes on Warren Crescent are part of an Oxford City Council development Council housing company OX Place and contractors RJ Leighfield & Sons.

When completed in summer 2023, the new homes will be let to people on the council’s housing register. Four will be let at social rent and the remaining six homes will be let at affordable rent levels.

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Four of the homes will be let as social rent

Social rent is calculated with reference to the size and value of a home and average regional incomes. In Oxford, this is typically around 40 per cent of equivalent private rents.

While the Government has defined affordable rent as up to 80 per cent of an equivalent private rent, the council’s tenancy strategy bases it on local housing allowance (LHA) levels. For council tenants in Oxford, affordable rent is around 60-65 per cent of the rent a private tenant would pay. 

Councillor Alex Hollingsworth, cabinet member for planning and housing delivery, said: “OX Place are delivering the homes that Oxford needs and Warren Crescent will provide an affordable new home for 10 families on our housing register.

“Oxford’s housing crisis is the sum of thousands of individual crises and each new council home can make a life-changing difference in a starkly unequal city.” 

OX Place managing director, Helen Horne, said: “OX Place’s mission is to deliver high quality, sustainable and affordable homes for the people of Oxford.

“Each new home is a step in our journey to build more than 2,000 homes in the next 10 years and I’m happy we’ve now started work on delivering 10 of them at Warren Crescent.”

As work to build the 10 three-bed homes gets underway, a sustainable drainage system for the site is also being created.

The use of enhanced building fabric and air tightness standards, together with the use of solar panels, mean that the new homes will also be highly energy efficient.

The development is being supported with £460,000 in funding from the Oxfordshire Housing and Growth Deal.

Set up by the council in 2016, OX Place aims to build more than 2,000 new homes for rent and sale in and around Oxford in the next 10 years.

These will include more than 1,100 council homes providing the genuinely affordable housing that Oxford needs.

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This story was written by Sophie Perry. She joined the team in 2021 as a digital reporter.

You can get in touch with her by emailing: sophie.perry@newsquest.co.uk

Follow her on Twitter @itssophieperry

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