Affordable Housing

There are a significant number of households on council house waiting lists for rented accommodation. The provision of affordable housing for registered social landlords is an important part of our business and responds to the demand from planning authorities to create mixed use communities. We play a significant role in the delivery of social housing and have extensive experience of working in this area with registered social landlords.

A lack of mortgage products particularly for first time buyers has made it very difficult for first time buyers to get a foot on the housing ladder. In March this year  the Government and the industry responded o this situation with the launch of the New Buy guaranteed low deposit scheme, this allows buyers to purchase homes providing they can assess a 5per cent deposit the scheme has resulted in Bellway selling 133 homes to the end of July which is an encouraging start to the scheme.

With the national average price of a two bedroom home being in the region of £170,000 it is increasingly difficult for young people to get on the housing ladder. The Bellway Housing Trust was established in 2005 to provide a shared equity facility to enable more people to access the housing ladder. To date the Bellway Housing Trust has provided 275 homes across 19 schemes across the country and of these nine residents have staircased to full ownership and four have increased their level of ownership.

In conjunction with Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation we have pioneered an agreement to develop both affordable and private housing whereby the land owner is paid on the sale of the homes thus mitigating the front end costs of the development and enabling the building work to be brought forward.

“By adopting a new and more flexible approach as to how the land transaction is structured in the development process we have been able to enter into an agreement and bring forward the development to create much needed housing in a continually improving residential location.”
Niall Lindsay - Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation’s Chief Executive

Recognising the important role that our armed and emergency services personnel play we have introduced special discount schemes to assist these people to buy property. In addition we also have a ‘Helping Hands’ scheme that allows parents and friends to contribute funds towards a deposit.