Harpenden, where the average property price is more than £826,000, will be getting its first affordable rented homes in a generation when Hightown Housing Association completes its new housing scheme on the former Lea Industrial Estate.
The Lower Luton Road development will be finished this summer, offering 15 flats to local people on the Council’s waiting list at below market rent, as well as eight homes for shared ownership to first-time buyers priced out of the market in the area.
Hightown’s new one and two bedroom apartments are now taking shape on the development, which is in the Lea Valley at Batford, close to the River Lea. Developers Lodge Park Ltd are building 67 new apartments and maisonettes, as well as two office buildings, on the site.
Hightown, a charitable housing association aiming to help people unable to afford to buy or rent homes at market values, is acquiring 35 per cent of the properties now being built on the development.
In a town where the average price of a property in the last 12 months was £826,254 and average monthly rents £1,812 it will provide much-needed affordable homes for local people.
Hightown Development Director George Edkins said: “There haven’t been any affordable housing built for rent in Harpenden since the 1970s. Meanwhile the market prices have risen dramatically, putting properties out of the reach of many local people.
“We’re looking forward to offering these attractive homes for affordable rent and shared ownership to people who would otherwise be priced out of the market in their own area.”
