New Affordable, Shared-Ownership Homes in Ripley

Published on: 29 Sep, 2014
Updated on: 1 Oct, 2014

Cllr Sarah Creedy joins staff from Guildford Borough Council and A2Dominion to welcome new tenant Donna Sharp and her family.

Cllr Sarah Creedy (in blue) joins staff from Guildford Borough Council and A2Dominion to welcome new tenant Donna Sharp and her family.

Thirty seven affordable homes will soon be available in Ripley for Guildford families, thanks to a partnership between Guildford Borough Council and A2Dominion who build homes for private sale and shared ownership.

Marlborough Place, which is built on the former White Hart Court site, includes a mixture of homes for rent to those on the council’s housing register and others available under a shared ownership, part-buy part-rent, scheme. The first homes have just been released and new tenants are moving in. The rented homes will be all be let by December.

A public car park with 60 spaces has also been completed as part of the development.

Cllr Sarah Creedy, lead councillor for housing and social welfare said: “It is very exciting to see at first hand this development providing much needed affordable housing in Ripley. I was delighted to meet a family of four who had at last been able to move out of their one-bedroom flat to this new home.

“This site is part of our wider plans to meet the clear need for affordable housing in our borough, through a number of developments already underway.”

Cllr Colin Cross.

Cllr Colin Cross (Lib Dem, Lovelace), elected in last week’s by-election, said: “It is always gratifying to see ordinary people having their local housing needs serviced. That said, we have had a lot of disappointed Ripley people contact the parish council as they have been turned down by GBC.

“We had been led to believe some properties would be reserved for purely local people so we are puzzled as to why it is not happening. Also, we believed the name of the development was accepted to be White Hart Meadows and we are unclear where Marlbough Place came from.”

Responses to New Affordable, Shared-Ownership Homes in Ripley

Roland McKinney Reply

September 30, 2014 at 11:32 am

So much for GBC’s housing policy – the need for a, “long and substantial local connection”. Why could some houses not have been reserved for locals? Can we believe anything we are told?

As I’ve said elsewhere, GBC run their social housing at a substantial profit. Over the past 11 years or so, this has totalled about £85 million.

Why are profits not spent on more affordable/social housing? It would have been especially beneficial to the borough if a building programme for social housing had started when the recession hit in 2008.

They should save during the good times so that extra spending can take up some of the slack during the bad times. Why does it seem that this level of planning is beyond them?
Colin Cross Reply

October 1, 2014 at 2:06 pm

I have been in discussion with the GBC housing officers concerned this morning and I
am happy to confirm that the ten rentable properties reserved for people with Ripley
connections will start being advertised to the public tomorrow.

It was also agreed that in future we will all refer to the development as White Hart
Meadows to avoid further confusion.

Colin Cross is the Lib Dem borough councillor for Lovelace ward.

Many thanks for the informative update. Ed.