North West-based housing association Cobalt Housing and national regeneration housebuilder Lovell Partnerships have commenced the build of 88 new homes at ‘Waterdale Gardens’, a new mixed tenure scheme in North Liverpool, which includes shared ownership and rent-to-buy options.
Located next to the Showcase cinema on East Lancashire Road in Croxteth, the development includes funding from Homes England and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, and will create 88 two, three and four-bed homes which will be available for affordable rent, rent-to-buy and shared ownership, broadening Cobalt Housing’s tenure offer in this area of Croxteth.
Cobalt Housing will manage the homes and will support Liverpool City Council’s ambition to ensure people living in the local area have the opportunity to access high-quality, affordable properties.
Local school children chose the ‘Waterdale Gardens’ development name from Our Lady and St Philomena’s Catholic Primary School in Fazakerley, following a recent youth engagement session with Cobalt staff, to think creatively about their future ideal home and community.
The £12m development includes several social value initiatives developed as part of the pre-contract process. These include work experience opportunities, apprenticeships, local job creation, and the dedicated promotion of sub-contractor opportunities to local SMEs.
The development sits within a designated area of regeneration identified by Cobalt Housing, which has already delivered 57 new homes at Altbridge Park. This new development sits alongside an ambitious programme of estate regeneration works planned at the Stonedale and Stonebridge estates which will provide additional new homes and a number of re-modelled and refurbished properties plus estate improvement works over the next five years.
Cobalt Housing is a registered housing association that manages and maintains more than 6000 affordable homes across North Liverpool. The organisation prides itself on providing quality housing and supporting local communities where people are proud to live.
Claire Griffiths, Chief Executive at Cobalt Housing, said: “We are delighted to be working with our trusted partner Lovell to bring 88 brand new affordable homes to Croxteth. It signals the continuation of our £300 million investment in our neighbourhoods over the next ten years, in existing and new homes for rent and sale, which we have set out in our new Corporate Plan.
This development will be a catalyst for increased confidence and aspiration in the Stonebridge area of Liverpool as we continue to expand our partnerships and investment, working closely with our customers and the wider community.”
Louise Davies, Director of Development and Growth at Cobalt Housing, said: “We are proud to be providing hundreds of homes across Merseyside as part of our plan to deliver 1000 much-needed new affordable homes in the next ten years. We’ve already seen lots of interest in the new shared ownership and rent-to-buy homes.”
The Lovell team have completed the scheme’s entire design and planning work, with grant funding being secured through the Homes England Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s Brownfield Land Fund.
Tahreen Shad, Regional Partnerships Director at Lovell Partnerships, said, “Liverpool is an important location to us, and we’re very proud to be investing in and delivering a number of schemes across the city, including Denford Road, which is backed by Liverpool City Council – demonstrating our long-term commitment to Merseyside.
As we begin our work on the Croxteth site, we will also be getting further embedded in the local community through our social value programme by engaging with nearby schools and groups, as well as employing and training young people through our apprenticeship scheme to deliver lasting outcomes.”
For more information, please visit https://cobalthousing.org.uk
About Cobalt Housing:
Cobalt Housing is a registered housing association based in North Liverpool. We manage and maintain approximately 6000 affordable homes in the Fazakerley, Croxteth and Norris Green areas of North Liverpool.
Our Corporate Plan for 2023-28 sets out our core priorities for the next five years, including providing excellent customer services, investing in quality homes, supporting communities to thrive and developing positive people.
We are ambitious and are embracing change so we can deliver the best services possible and we plan to invest over £300 million into our homes and neighbourhoods over the next 10 years, to ensure positive outcomes for our communities.
As the majority landlord in the area we are also a community catalyst, actively engaged in a wide range of economic, neighbourhood and community regeneration activities in the area we serve, and are committed to building strong partnerships with local organisations to maximise the impact of everything we do.
