Plymouth Community Homes (PCH) hosted a visit from Sarah Jones, Labour MP for Croydon and Shadow Housing Minister
The visit was part of a meeting of the Homes for the South West group, made up of Chief Executives and other senior managers of major housing associations with properties in the South West including LiveWest, Sovereign, Stonewater and Westward housing.
The aim of H4SW is to put forward the region’s case for investment in affordable homes on a national level.
LiveWest Chief
Executive, Paul Crawford said:
“Between the Homes for the South West members we are ready to invest in
building over 16,000 much-needed new homes over the next four years.
“It was great to meet Sarah to make the case for the changes we need in land,
planning, skills and infrastructure to make this happen.”
The visit started off with meeting MP Luke Pollard for a tour to see first-hand the fire safety works at the Mount Wise Towers which are being completed in partnership with Mi-Space and Baileys Partnership.
Next up was a visit to the ongoing regeneration of North Prospect which has seen huge changes in the last decade in one of the largest regeneration schemes of its kind in the South West.
The MP also visited completed PCH developments schemes at Primrose Park in Whitleigh and Porsham Heights in Southway.
Ms Jones was particularly interested in the eco-friendly homes at the Whitleigh development which is built to Passivhaus standards and aims to reduce energy use for residents and shared owners. Ms Jones took the opportunity to meet residents to find out how they find living in the eco-friendly homes.
Nick Jackson, Director of Business Services and Development for PCH said: “We are very proud of all our developments and the Passivhaus scheme, in particular, is a look at the future of house building to protect the environment. Currently, the build costs are more expensive than traditional sites and we couldn’t have done it without the support of Plymouth City Council and funding from Homes England.
“We have attracted national interest and we are very pleased to be able to showcase our work in Plymouth to such influential people as Sarah so that they can understand the importance of the need to maintain funding for environmentally efficient homes and also for regeneration sites such as North Prospect which have life changing impacts on existing and new communities.”