Development - New Homes

Castles and Coasts Housing Association (CCHA) is committed to the delivery of more than 600 homes across Cumbria and the North East over the next 5 years. As a Housing Association with a strong social conscience, we are focused on tackling the housing crisis, improving lives, harnessing its financial strength to meet the needs of it’s local communities.

Our Development Strategy focuses on the areas of South and North Lakes, Penrith, Carlisle, the Tyne Valley and South Northumberland. That said, we would also consider opportunities toward the Cumbrian coast, on Tyneside and Wearside and the adjacent areas, where we have existing homes.

We welcome the opportunity to talk with landowners, and their agents, particularly about the potential of planning exception sites and the delivery of affordable housing. We are also keen to work with Housebuilders and Developers on joint ventures, partnerships and Section 106 obligations.

We are very experienced and well placed to develop in both urban and rural areas with considerable expertise in developments within National Parks.

We are proud of our record in delivering high quality affordable homes across our areas of operation. We aim to build on this by providing homes for Rent, Shared Ownership, Rent to Buy and Outright Sale.

Available New Homes

Orton Grange, Orton Road, Carlisle

Castles and Coasts Housing Association (CCHA) is thrilled to have taken handover of the first 8 homes of a Section 106 purchase at Story Homes’ Orton Grange site. The site, located at Orton Road, Carlisle will feature 156 homes, and we have purchased 23 of these to be handed over February and December 2023. Our first 8 units are all lovely 2-bedroom bungalows with private driveways and spacious back gardens. The remaining homes are 11 2-bedroom houses and 4 3-bedroom houses. All properties will be advertised for Affordable Rent on Cumbria Choice Based Lettings.

Speckled Wood, Altura , Carleton Road, Carlisle, Cumbria

Castles and Coasts are pleased to have taken handover of 5 new homes at the Speckled Wood Phase 2 development from Persimmon Homes Limited. Castles and Coasts acquired all 5 properties that were available for affordable rent as part of the 50 property site, off London Road, Carlisle. There is a block of 3, 2 bedroom homes and 2, 3 bedroom dormer bungalows finished to a high standard available for Affordable Rent in January 2023. All homes will be advertised via Cumbria Choice Based Lettings.

Longshore Village, Blyth

Castles and Coasts are delighted to have received handover of the first five bungalows from Miller Homes, on their Longshore Village development in Blyth. The site consists of 169 homes, of which Castles and Coasts have acquired 25, a mixture of Affordable Rent and Shared Ownership properties. The properties were finished to an excellent standard and will be available to let in early October 2022. The Affordable Rented properties will be available via Northumberland HomeFinder and the Shared Ownership properties are being marketed by LSL Land and New Homes. Please call 0115 671 0397 for further details

Case Study - Working with a Community Land Trust

In 2017/18, we built four new homes for affordable rent at Skelwith Bridge in the Lake District. We worked closely with the Skelwith and Langdale Community Land Trust to develop these family homes. The Trust identified the land and the need for development, and we used our development and management skills to make the Trust’s aspiration to provide affordable homes in their community a reality.

Neaum Hurst Cottages, Skelwith Bridge, Ambleside

Oak Fold, Kendal

Future development objectives

Following the creation of CCHA, one of the positive benefits has been the increase in the Association’s capacity to development. We now aim to create an average of 120 new homes each year. This is a doubling of our activity compared to recent years and will see 600 additional homes developed by 2025.

Our priority areas for development are throughout our area of operations in the North of England, where land supply can meet the demonstrated housing need. We strive to be innovative and collaborative in our approach, working with partners to bring forward opportunities to the benefit of the local community. While larger schemes are often more economic to develop, we will still bring our expertise to smaller developments especially in the more rural areas to meet local needs.

We anticipate that our development programme in future will be made up of a blend of rented (75%) Shared Ownership (15%) and Outright Sale homes (10%). Outright market sale will play a key role in the programme with income from sales cross subsidising the schemes to increase viability. The Rent to Buy tenure is becoming increasingly popular, therefore where the right market conditions exist, this tenure may be used instead of Shared Ownership.

We are passionate about creating homes that meet the needs of the local communities we serve.