Plans to build 38 homes on council-owned land in Stevenage have been approved by councillors. 

The homes, on the site of a former depot in Symonds Green known as Cartref, will include twelve flats available at rents deemed ‘affordable’, according to the government definition of the term.

Half of the flats will have one bedroom, with the other half having two bedrooms.

The 26 houses on the site will include 15 three-bedroom homes and 11 four-bedroom homes.

Each semi-detached property will have two car parking spaces and electric vehicle charging points, and most existing trees on the site would be retained. 

Council planning officers said the development would make “a strong contribution to the aim of boosting housing supply” on a brownfield site.

They said “changes in demographics” in Stevenage mean there has been “an increase in the number of single person households and couples needing homes”. 

Access to the site, next to Meadway playing fields, will mainly be from a new road junction with Clovelly Way. There will also be access to part of the site from Symonds Green Lane.

The proposals changed significantly after a pre-application enquiry was made in 2020, when the council was hoping to build 95 homes including 72 flats. Residents were consulted on the plans towards the end of 2023.

Before the plans were approved by Stevenage Borough Council’s planning and development committee on Tuesday (October 29), Cllr Coleen Houlihan suggested the affordable homes should have been three-bedrooms, rather than one or two.

She said: “Stevenage was built and the houses were allocated to create wonderful mixes and communities. All the affordable rent is in the flat blocks, and there’s no affordable houses.

“[In our Local Plan] there’s really, really few in comparison to the amount that are flats. I realise it comes down to a percentage of the properties built, but I would like to see a higher percentage of the properties be the three and four-bedroom homes, because it isn’t just people who need one and two-bedroom flats.

“Everyone who’s on a lower income that needs social housing is going to be in the flat block, and everyone that can buy somewhere is going to be in a house. 

"It doesn’t really match with the way I see Stevenage around me, with that mix of communities – council houses and privately owned houses right next door to each other.”

She added she wanted to see more “integration” of affordable homes and market rate homes. 

In response, Zayd Al-Jawad, assistant director for planning at the council, said there is more need for one and two-bedroom affordable homes in Stevenage, and they would free up larger homes further down the line.