All 186 homes have been bought by two housing associations to provide homes for local people
Amy Bishop, (GSA Customer) at the Bonnington Walk development in Lockleaze(Image: GreenSquareAccord)
A flagship Bristol ‘innovative housing’ development that ran into trouble two years ago, with people having their deposits paid back to them, is back on track after the entire site was bought by two housing associations.
The purchase of all 185 homes on the troubled Bonnington Walk development in Lockleaze by housing associations GreenSquare and Bromford now mean that all of the homes will either be rented or sold as ‘affordable homes’, and half of them will go to people from Lockleaze itself.
Local people who have managed to snap up one of the homes under a low-cost homeownership scheme are celebrating this week, and the first people to move in to the rented homes will begin getting the keys in the first week of July.
Amy Bishop will soon be one of Bonnington Walk’s first residents. She said: “I am so excited to pick up the keys for my new home in Lockleaze, an up-and-coming area of Bristol which buyers like me are often priced out of.
“It feels amazing to get a foothold on the property ladder and I am grateful to Lorna and the GSA team for all their support throughout the process.”
It is a remarkable turnaround after the L&G-built homes ran into such trouble that many of them had to be lifted off the foundations and taken away again.
The project, on the council-owned green space between the original 1950s Lockleaze estate and the railway line, was initially given planning permission five years ago and was a flagship development under the previous Labour administration of Mayor Marvin Rees.
Back then, around half the 185 homes were designated as ‘affordable’ with 64 earmarked as council housing under social rent, and 29 as shared ownership.
The Bonnington Walk site, controversially given planning permission in November 2020, was hailed as the flagship of Bristol City Council ’s innovative housebuilding programme.
It was championed through the Mayor’s Office and the Bristol Housing Festival, which promoted Bristol as a hub for innovative home-building methods.
In 2021’s ‘State of the City’ address, the mayor listed Bonnington Walk as a success of his administration, and in 2022’s ‘State of the City’ address, he said the development only ‘got over the line’ because of his ‘personal’ intervention.
But the way the homes were being built – in the modular style with the homes built off-site, brought to Lockleaze and assembled on foundations – became an issue.
Since 2021, the modular homes industry suffered more than the traditional housebuilding industry in the economic downturn and the rising costs of materials.
In the spring of 2023, L&G announced it was closing down its modular home building factory, which was creating the homes for Lockleaze, but said it would carry on completing the homes for Bonnington Walk.
Then, in July 2023, Bristol Live reported that people buying homes at Bonnington Walk were being given compensation because issues with the foundations meant the homes had to be completely removed and dismantled.
Most people who had put down deposits for the homes walked away and got their money back, one telling Bristol Live that her home-owning dream was over because of the issues. That summer, it was understood only 12 people were left hanging on hoping it would be resolved.
READ MORE: Modular homes to be removed and replaced at flagship Bristol developmentREAD MORE: Bristol’s modular homes fiasco means ‘I can give up home-owning dream’
Since then, L&G pressed on with getting the homes built properly, and now, two years on, it has been announced they have sold the entire site to two housing associations.
GreenSquareAccord (GSA) have bought 107 of the homes, and have split them almost in half. A total of 55 will be rented out to people on the council’s HomeChoice housing waiting list at the cheaper ‘social rent’ level, while 52 are being sold/rented under a shared ownership scheme.
It is the first time GSA, a housing association that has evolved out of the privatisation of North Wiltshire’s council housing stock a generation ago, is branching out into Bristol, and the GSA homes will be a mix of flats, two, three and four-bed houses and two-bed bungalows.
The Bonnington Walk development in Lockleaze(Image: GreenSquareAccord)
The other 78 homes at Bonnington Walk have been bought by Bromford housing association, who have 82,000 homes across the country, with thousands in South Gloucestershire.
Of those 78, a total of 58 will be rented out at ‘affordable rent’ levels, and the remaining 20 will be shared ownership. Some 25 of Bromford’s homes are three-bed homes for families, and the other 53 are two-bed. The first rental homes will be handed over to their new tenants in the first week of July.
Half the rented homes will be rented to people from Lockleaze itself, who are waiting for social housing – something Cllr Zoe Peat, Labour’s lead on housing at City Hall, said was a policy brought in under the previous Labour administration.
“I am delighted that 185 new homes are coming to Lockleaze,” said Cllr Peat (Lab, Avonmouth & Lawrence Weston). “Every one will now be affordable, with 113 of them to be reserved for people on the social housing waiting list.
“Half of those homes will be allocated to local residents waiting for social housing in Lockleaze as part of the local lettings scheme introduced by the previous Labour administration. The safety and security of having a roof over your head can instantly improve life chances and will make the world of difference to families currently on the housing waiting list.
L-R Rob Finch (Project Manger, Bromford), Cllr Zoe Peat (Bristol Labour Housing Lead on Bristol City Council), Amy Bishop, (GSA Customer), Eliza Garrett, (Locality Manager, GSA) at the Bonnington Walk development in Lockleaze(Image: GreenSquareAccord)
“These developments were secured by the previous Labour administration in Bristol and are another step forward in easing the pressures of the housing crisis. It is a testament to what can be achieved with a clear vision and a working partnership with developers,” she added.
“Alongside providing desperately needed new affordable homes, they are kitted out with solar panels and air source heat pumps, helping to bring down emissions and save the new residents money on their heating bills. These are exactly the sort of homes we need to be building to tackle both the housing and climate crises. My thanks go to everyone who has worked so hard to take these plans from conception to reality,” she added.
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