Bristol celebrates 100th council home

Bristol City Council is set to reach a milestone in a local regeneration project this month when the 100th council house is completed.

The house is part of a project with developer Bovis Homes to provide 330 new council bungalows and houses across 15 sites in Bristol. They are being built to replace pre-fabricated homes put up in the wartime.

The project began in 2003 following the decision to demolish and re-develop the homes which did not meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard.

Councillor Mark Wright, cabinet member for Housing and Service Improvement, said: "The handover of the 100th home created through the prefab redevelopment project is a real milestone and a great day for the city."

Ron Phipps, senior project manager at Bovis Homes for the prefab scheme, said: "This is an important milestone in the prefab project and we're very pleased to be celebrating this with Bristol City Council.

"It's very much a partnership scheme; we work extremely closely with council staff to ensure we provide the service they require and deliver the homes the tenants want.

"We've had some very positive feedback and comments from tenants so far who are very happy with the quality, design and specification of their new homes. It's very satisfying to see parts of the project coming full circle with the community together again and settling back into life in the area."

To date the project has completed four sites - two in Ashton Vale, one in Hengrove and one in Shirehampton - and is currently building homes in Aston Vale, Speedwell, St George, Brislington and Horfield.

Of the original 330 tenants, only 11 are still waiting to move. Most of them have either been moved into alternative accommodation or into new bungalows which have been built as part of the re-development project.