Plan to transform old University of Northampton campus into 170 affordable homes set for green light from council

Plans to turn the old University of Northampton campus into 170 affordable homes are set to be rubber-stamped by the council tomorrow (Wednesday, February 17).

The university already has hybrid planning permission for the Avenue Campus, which the council has agreed to buy through its housing association, Northampton Partnership Homes (NPH).

But its cabinet needs to ratify the decision in principle to go ahead with the St George's Avenue redevelopment before grant bids can be submitted and the project can get underway.

An officer report ahead of the meeting says: "Cabinet can choose to redevelop the Avenue Campus for affordable housing.

"This option is recommended because the Avenue Campus offers the council and NPH an excellent opportunity to increase Northampton’s supply of affordable rented accommodation – in a sustainable location and within a relatively short timescale – and help to reduce, directly and indirectly, the use and cost of temporary accommodation."

The Avenue Campus is surplus to its requirements as the university has now relocated most of its functions to its new Waterside Campus so it agreed to sell it to the council.

Planning permission to demolish most of the Maidwell Building for 58 flats, convert the Basset Lowke Building into 48 apartments, turn the Quinton Building back into a house and build 63 more homes was approved in October.

The scheme originally included no affordable housing as it was not viable but the council wants all the properties to be made cheaper for people to rent and give NPH the Newton Building.

This would increase Northampton’s supply of affordable housing and help to meet the housing needs of applicants on the Housing Register, including homeless households living in temporary accommodation, the report says.

The council will submit a grant application to Homes England for the scheme but if this is unsuccessful or insufficient, the local authority will either use capital receipts from former council homes or market rental properties to subsidise the development in a mixed tenure scheme.

The cabinet agreed to purchase the site, subject to satisfactory due diligence, in December with a completion date of no later than March 31.

If the development is approved, a reserved matters planning application will be needed for 112 of the homes while NPH will press ahead with the Maidwell Building work.

The only parts of the building to be kept will be the two pavilions, which front onto St George’s Avenue, to be retained and converted into 26 apartments.

It was considered more environmentally-friendly, cost-effective and quicker to convert the Basset Lowke Building, a 1990s hall of residence with 248 student flats, into eight two-bedroom and 40 three-bedroom apartments rather than demolish it.

The Quinton Building was originally a family home before being used as a university office so it will probably be used as a site office and then turned back into a property towards the end of the development.

The rest of the homes would be built in place of the other buildings on the site with a mixture of terraced and semi-detached family-sized houses.

Once the development is finished, NPH will take over the management of the homes, let at affordable rents (up to 80 per cent of the market rent) but capped at Local Housing Allowance rates.