Sunderland City Council is set to invest £2.85 million into an affordable housing scheme.

The scheme will see 26 affordable bungalows constructed. Nine of the bungalows will be for general needs while 17 will be designed for people with disabilities.

As well as the bungalows, a new day centre will be built to support disabled people, with the council investing £1.4 million in the project.

The council’s cabinet agreed back in November that Sunderland City Council should once again become a registered social housing provider.

It is hoped this will enable the council to deal with any gaps in housing provision that other organisations cannot fill, in addition to speeding up the supply of the affordable homes Sunderland needs.

Now it is once more a registered social housing provider, the council plans to submit bids to Homes England for grants to help with the cost of the bungalow scheme.

The bungalows the council plans to build are:

17 in Cork Street, Hendon, designed for people with physical disabilities. The new day centre will also be built on this site.

Four two-bedroom bungalows for older people in Albert Place, Washington

Five two-bedroom bungalows for older people in Boult Terrace, Houghton

The council is planning to begin work on the bungalows and the day centre in spring 2020.

Sunderland City Council’s cabinet member for housing and regeneration, Cllr Rebecca Atkinson, said, “We have very ambitious plans for our city and we’ve been incredibly successful at attracting private housing developers and investment to Sunderland, with more than 7,000 new homes due to be built over the next 10 years.”

“We need to make sure that we have a wide variety of housing types and sizes available to meet the needs of all our communities and these bungalow projects will help us to do just that.”

“Becoming a registered housing provider will help us work with partners in a more comprehensive way. We can enable others to deliver as well as deliver directly, where this is felt appropriate to do so.”

“It is good to know we and our partners are proactively addressing our affordable housing and strategic housing needs across the city.”

(Featured image courtesy of Lee Haywood from Flickr Creative Commons. This photo is not meant to represent the bungalows the council wish to build.)