Moving with Dacorum

Working towards the home of your dreams

Imagine moving into a brand new home on a highly desirable new development, surrounded by properties that have been selling for £half a million.  For added security there’s even wireless CCTV on site!  Too good to be true – a fantasy, surely?

Maybe not – we are currently advertising thee, three-bedroom properties, as well as learning new DIY skills and putting them to good use installing some of the fittings in their own new homes.  Dacorum-based Hightown Housing Association (a registered provider of social housing), will be giving three new tenants the chance to move into a ‘custom build’ home on Barratt’s brand new Spencer Park development.   

Spencer Park is close to open country side including the Nickey Line cycleway. Railway links to London are available a few miles away, the industrial area is within walking distance. The M1 motorway is barely ten minutes away and it’s just a short trip to the thriving local town centres in Harpenden, St Albans and Hemel Hempstead. 

If you’d prefer to shop locally, there will be a shop on the development as well as a Sainsbury’s supermarket, a parade of shops and a petrol station close by.  Local primary schools are rated ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

What’s the catch?  If your application is successful, you would have to attend a five-day course, learning essential skills that you can then apply to the finishing of your home.  The good news is that you would choose your own kitchen, bathroom and tiles before getting stuck in to install them, supervised by Barratt’s trained staff.

This is a unique opportunity to access free training and skills including Site safety, First Aid, use of site equipment such as tile cutters and angle grinders, ‘second fixes’ to properties including tiling and painting. You must be over 18 and complete all the training to be considered for the property, so you would gain these vital skills by working on your own home under supervision.  It is possible that some trainees could also be offered an apprenticeship.

Following a report agreed by the Portfolio Holder for Housing recently there have been some minor amendments to Dacorum Borough Councils Allocation Policy.  The amendments are summarised below.

• The Council has made a commitment to increase accessibility to sheltered accommodation and allows applicants aged 60+ who own their own property, to bid for accommodation on the register. However with housing need growing, it is important that properties are allocated to those without the means to secure themselves suitable alternative housing.  Section 4.4 of the Policy has now been amended to reflect that where applicants have sufficient financial means to purchase alternative accommodation within the Dacorum area that is suitable for their needs they will not be eligible for an allocation.

• The Council want to retain village connections and enable those households with residence, employment or family association within a village to be prioritised when bidding for accommodation.However on review of the last 12 months an increasing numbers of village properties have beenre-advertised as no local connection bids have been received. Section 8 of the allocations policy has now been amended to clearly demonstrate how the Council will manage village lettings if no bids are received from applicants with a village connection.

The amended Housng Allocations Policy is available in the Information section above under 'Housing Strategies and Policies'.  If these changes may affect you or you would like to discuss your application please contact the Council by email HousingOptions@dacorum.gov.uk or telephone 01442 228000 and asking for ‘Housing Options’.

Dacorum Borough Council’s Housing Allocations Policy now has an additional bedroom standard so that some families can bid on a wider range of homes. It is hoped that this change will reduce the current high demand for two bedroom properties.

Families will still be able to bid for properties based on the existing bedroom standard which means they are considered overcrowded if they have siblings of different genders aged 10 or over, or same-sex siblings aged 21 or over. However, they will now also be able to bid for properties based on the new bedroom standard that calculates overcrowding if there are:

• siblings of different genders aged 5 or over, or

• same-sex siblings aged 16 or over.

As a result some families will now be able to bid for both 2 and 3 bedroom properties. For example this could be a family with a boy aged 8 and girl aged 4 or another family with two boys aged 14 and 17.

Applications will not change automatically, so if this change affects you and you would like your application to be amended please contact the Council by email HousingOptions@dacorum.gov.uk or telephone 01442 228000 and asking for ‘Housing Options’.