News from Bolton at Home

Here you'll find our most recent news articles, from important tenant updates and new housing developments, to new community initiatives and activities.

Back to the list

Moving home for Christmas

Moving home for Christmas

Our latest affordable housing development in Horwich, designed to help people with local connections, has welcomed its first tenants in time for Christmas.

We’ve developed 21 new homes for affordable rent off Berne Avenue, regenerating a derelict former social club site.

The two and three-bedroom homes received hundreds of expressions of interest from local people through the Homes for Bolton home finder service, proving the need for more new affordable homes in the area. They were advertised during May and June.

The development has a local lettings policy, which ensures 70 per cent of the homes go to people with a connection to the local area.

The first tenants began moving in on Thursday 16 December after the main contractor, McCauls, handed the development over to us.

Emily and Tom Mayo were among the first tenants to move in with their children aged 10 and six.

Emily said: “I grew up in Horwich and we have family here too, but we could never have afforded to live here if we’d stayed in the private rented sector. We love the extra space we’ve got now, especially as I’m working from home and it’s also handy for my husband to get to work.

“The kids love having their own room now and a garden to play in. We’d been on the housing waiting list for years so this is like having our dreams come true.”

Jon Lord, our Group Chief Executive, added: “These homes are allowing local people to stay close to their families and maintain their local connections in Horwich, an area where many people are priced out of home ownership. It’s great to see these families moving into their new home in time for Christmas.

“The other benefit of us building new homes like these is that they allow us to generate income that we can reinvest in our existing homes and neighbourhoods. As well as our new-build programme, we invest around £38m each year on tenant’s homes through repairs and maintenance works and improvement programmes such as kitchen and bathroom upgrades and improved energy efficiency.”

Joe McCaul, a director of McCauls, said: “We are delighted to get these families in their new home for Christmas and to finish on time despite difficult circumstances. This was our first affordable housing project and it’s been a pleasure working with Bolton at Home who we look forward to working with again in the future.”

Since 2018, we’ve been working to create 1,400 new homes over a five year period through a mix of new-build development with contractors and acquiring new homes from private developers under section 106 agreements. This is providing a broad mix of homes for rent and some for shared ownership.

If you’re interested in any of our new build properties for rent, you would need to be registered with Homes for Bolton and apply for them via the Homes for Bolton website when they're ready to be advertised.

Please click the following link for more information on Homes for Bolton: www.homesforbolton.org.uk.

We market our shared ownership properties under the name Stonecross Homes. For more information on Stonecross Homes, available properties and shared ownership, please visit: www.stonecrosshomes.co.uk.