Hello!
Welcome to our June blog update about our work in Somerton
Our last Resident Steering Group meeting was on 3 August at Nexus House, with a combination of people attending in person and online. 9 residents and the 3 Councillors attended. Terry and Andrew from Oxford Architects attended, to talk through the design activity we are working on.
Read the minutes of the meeting here.
Project Plan
Within our project plan we have started to visit all our NCH customers to find out about their families and their current living arrangements, this is to ensure we have up to date information who is living in our properties and to ensure that we are building the right homes for those wanting to stay in Somerton.
Valuer
Jones Battye have been valuing properties where homeowners have requested a valuation, we have carried out 32 valuations all have had offer letters and valuation reports sent to them. We have had 14 valuations accepted to date.
We are working with Peter Alan who are a local agent who will be helping us to look at our offer to homeowners who wish to stay in Somerton as part of the new development, we will be looking at options for low cost homeownership. We are also working with Peter Alan and being able to provide those homeowners who wish to stay in Somerton with financial advice.
Design Update
Acacia Avenue, Hawthorne Fosse and a corner of Hawthorne Fosse have been looked at for regeneration. Potential areas for regeneration are Laburnum Drive, corners of Sycamore and Hawthorne Avenue, Ashley Road, Poplar Road, a section of Sycamore Avenue and Libeneth Road. This is due to a higher proportion of NCH ownership, existing properties having issues with damp as identified in the survey reports and great opportunities for regeneration and placemaking.
Palm Square, Hawthorne Square and a section of Hawthorne Avenue will likely be within the refurbishment program, for NCH properties, we are looking at these areas and other potential sites for refurbishment due to a lower proportion being owned by NCH, a lower proportion of homes have damp problems and we are listening to the views of the community.
Linden Road, Somerton Road will be taken out of the red line and the properties that we own their will be within the refurbishment program.
Refurbishment
A property in Hawthorne Avenue and 1 in Linden Road will be the 2 pilot properties for the refurbishment program, extensive works will be carried out to these 2 properties and once all the work is complete we would want people to live in them while we monitor the performance and carry out regular visits to the properties to ensure the works that have been carried out are robust.
The design team are working on building a specification for the refurbishment properties to ensure the program can be rolled out for the rest of the properties that will be refurbished.
Communications
The group when started put together a communication plan and we have monthly steering group meetings, which we publish on our website alongside the blog, we have written out to residents who had a survey carried out by Michal Dyson, we update social media to advise of surveys that will be taking place in the empty properties, we have held a community consultation event in March and we are planning another event for the end of September, information will be coming through your letterbox about the event early September.
At the event in September we will be showing our thoughts for other areas for refurbishment and showing plans for regeneration sites, please come along and give us your thoughts and feedback.
Time and Date of Next Meeting
Wednesday 7 September at 17.30pm
We hope that this blog has been useful – if you have any questions, or if there’s anything you’d like us to cover in future blogs, please get in touch with us at community@newportcityhomes.com.
Thanks,
The Somerton team