Eighty-three new homes planned for Buxton

Construction workers build new houses on a housing development. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

The homes would be built off Granby Road in Fairfield on land owned by High Peak Borough Council and allocated for housing in the adopted local plan.

All of the £467,600 awarded by the government through its £450m Local Authority Accelerated Construction Programme (LAAC) will be used to carry out pre-development work to prepare the site for a potential developer.

The remediation covers work such as moving utilities, ground investigations, construction of a quarry bund, noise attenuation and necessary ecology studies to inform and design an acceptable scheme.

The council-led development is aimed at building market confidence in Buxton and kick-starting the delivery of 700 new homes in the Buxton Eastern Growth area.

Councillor Anthony McKeown, leader of High Peak Borough Council, said: “This is great news – the funding will enable us to get on with delivering some of these in-demand houses.

“I’m particularly pleased that at least a third of them will be much-need affordable homes and look forward to getting the scheme underway.”

Stephen Kinsella, Executive Director for Land at Homes England, said: “This funding will support High Peak Borough Council to accelerate housing delivery by enabling them to prepare this site for development and bring forward the construction of new homes incorporating modern methods of construction.”

High Peak Conservative Parliamentary candidate Robert Largan said: “This announcement will enable High Peak Borough Council to build 83 new homes in High Peak - helping more people to get on the housing ladder and contribute to the government’s plans to build 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s.”

Speaking about the news Ruth George MP said the move was welcome - with around 2,000 ‘individuals and families’ on a housing waiting list.

She said: “I’m pleased to see that High Peak Council is leading on this development.

“A large part of my case work involves local families in need of housing so I see what a great need there is that the council can’t fulfil at present and that has a huge impact on people waiting in unsuitable accommodation, borrowing friends’ sofas, and even families sleeping on floors.

“With around 2,000 local individuals and families on the housing waiting list I know the Labour leadership at High Peak Council will be looking to build as many affordable homes as possible.”