Bath-based housing group Curo has started work on two much-needed developments in Bristol as it continues to play a key role in helping to ease the city’s new homes crisis.
Last month Curo and contractor Clayewater Homes began building 20 affordable homes on the site of a former car garage in Soundwell and is now starting work on 70 affordable homes in Bishopsworth, pictured, after securing planning consent for the site earlier this year.
The schemes are the latest in Bristol for Curo, which manages more than 13,000 homes across the region and builds hundreds of new ones each year.
The £5.3m brownfield development at Soundwell in the east of the city includes the one, two, three and four-bedroom homes, six of them for social rent and 14 for sale through a shared ownership low-cost scheme.
Curo is investing just under £4m into the scheme, which is due to be completed by the end of next year, alongside funding from the government’s housing agency Homes England and other grants totalling more than £1.3m.
At Bishopsworth in South Bristol, Curo is working with contractor Vistry Partnerships in the £16.4m development, which will include a mix of 70 apartments and houses with one, two and three-bedrooms on one of the last remaining undeveloped plots of land of the former Imperial Tobacco factory site.
The scheme will provide 12 homes for social rent, 29 for affordable rent and another 29 for sale under shared ownership.
The homes will be fitted with air source heat pumps, a low maintenance and more environmentally friendly alternative to gas boilers. Homes for social and affordable rent will also feature photovoltaic solar panels, helping to reduce residents’ carbon footprint and energy bills.
Electric vehicle charging points will be available around the new neighbourhood, which will also feature a central green open space with trees, shrubs and natural wood play equipment.
Curo’s £12m-plus investment in the scheme, which is due to complete by spring 2024, will be completed with money from its Homes England strategic partnership grant allocation as well as a £700,000 grant from Bristol City Council.
Curo chief executive Victor da Cunha said the sustainable development would make a significant contribution towards a low carbon future for Bristol, while helping more families to live in high-quality homes either through affordable homeownership or life-long tenancies.
“The homes will also cost less to run, helping to tackle fuel poverty – especially important in these uncertain times with skyrocketing energy prices,” he added.
Curo deputy managing director of housebuilding Sarah Maylor said Bristol, like many other cities, towns and villages in the South West, needed more good quality affordable housing.
“Developments like the one at Soundwell Road can deliver much-needed inner-city regeneration of brownfield sites, helping to lift the area and provide new homes for local families at the same time.”
Curo is working on other similar sites in Bristol, including the 128-property Century Park scheme and 57 The Willows regeneration scheme, both in Lawrence Weston, 32 affordable homes in the city’s Old Market district, and a 100% affordable housing development at Broadbury Road, Filwood, with 47 homes.
Curo is best known in Bath for its flagship 700-home Mulberry Park development on former MoD land on the city’s outskirts.
Pictured at the Soundwell scheme groundbreaking ceremony, from left: South Gloucestershire cabinet member for regeneration, environment and strategic infrastructure Cllr Steve Reade; Bristol City Council cabinet member for housing delivery and homes Cllr Tom Renhard; Curo deputy managing director of housebuilding Sarah Maylor; Clayewater Homes land director Paul Madge and Clayewater Homes managing director Brian Webber
