Number of afforable homes build drops

Speaking at the annual meeting of Lakes Parish Council, Coun David Vatcher said progress towards providing new homes had slowed on a number of proposed developments including the former Ambleside Gasworks site, where negotiations for housing including ten house/workshop units had stalled.

Mr Vatcher added that a plan for 16 houses on a site by Ambleside Methodist Church would be delayed because the land would not now be released until 2005, and the five houses proposed for land at Greengate, Troutbeck, could be reduced to three because badgers have been found on the site. This meant that a wildlife corridor would have to be created, which would eliminate two houses on the only land considered as suitable for the development out of the total of 22 sites looked at. He said the situation in Grasmere appeared marginally brighter, where new houses are under construction at Badgers Court, Highfieldside, and three more homes are in the pipeline, but added this only went a short way towards meeting local need. Steven Bell, of the Grasmere Traders' Association, said that a housing survey showed the village needed as many as 22 affordable new homes within five years. Without them, there might be too few children to keep Grasmere School open within a decade, and not enough local staff to run businesses in the village, he said.

The new units that Ambleside is set to gain in 2004 include a town centre flat and two two-bedroom houses on the site of former toilets up Stock Ghyll. Coun Vatcher, who estimated that there are now more than 100 cases in need of re-housing in Ambleside, urged residents to keep voicing their housing needs and not to stop searching for suitable sites.

Lakes Parish Council plans to address housing needs in its forthcoming Parish Plan by helping to set up working groups of residents and landowners to identify and negotiate the release of land suitable for new housing.