Middlezoy Parish Council has invited Homes in Sedgemoor (HiS) to work with them on their community-driven project to build new affordable homes in the village.
Research has shown that at least 26 families are in need of housing in the village, where the price of a home is beyond the reach of first-time buyers’ pockets and rental properties are rarely vacant. HiS representatives were invited to an affordable housing briefing for local residents at the Parish Council’s recent monthly meeting. The audience was told about local housing pressures and what HiS was hoping to do about solving the shortage of affordable housing in the village.
The parish council has been working on finding ways of providing the 26 homes in the village since 2019 with a housing association, but so far nothing has come to fruition.
HiS development team members Duncan, Ryan and Becky gave a twenty-minute presentation and answered questions from around 35 residents for an hour about the possibility of moving the project forward, with the homes situated on one or more sites in the village.
Duncan said:
“The session was very positive, and we are looking forward to working on this community driven project with the Middlezoy housing steering group.
“We need to find out how many properties are needed, what type of homes are desirable and the kind of tenure that would be best for the village and for the people living there who need homes.”
HiS would invest local authority money and try to secure central government grants to ensure this was a cost-neutral development.
The team will carry out further meetings with the steering group and create an action plan to help secure the homes for Middlezoy.