£10m to be spent on Newport tower blocks refurb (From South Wales Argus)
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£10m to be spent on Newport tower blocks refurb
10:25am Thursday 25th October 2012 in News
By Natalie Crockett
£10m PROJECT: Milton Court in Ringland is one of the tower blocks in Newport due to be refurbished
NEWPORT City Homes (NCH) is to spend in the region of £10 million refurbishing its three tower blocks.
Preparation work on Greenwood in St Julians, Hillview in Gaer and Ringland’s Milton Court will begin this month.
The project will be carried out in stages over a two year time span as NCH tries to minimise the disruption to residents.
Each block contains 82 flats, but some are currently unoccupied.
Flats will get double glazed windows, new electric heating systems will be installed and electric panel radiators will improve the energy efficiency of all homes.
The layout of flats will also change to give the best use of space and will see bathrooms, bedrooms and lounges accessed from the hallways.
Tenants will also get new kitchens and bathrooms.
They can choose from four designs picking out everything from the floor finish to the wall tiles.
But externally the three tower blocks built decades ago will be transformed with new roofs and cladding which is designed to improve the buildings’ insulation.
The work, which already has planning permission, is being completed to bring homes up to Welsh housing quality standards.
As well as the flats, communal areas will get a fresh lick of paint and security will be improved with new door entry systems.
Contractor Wates Living Spaces (Wates) has been appointed and will be at each block for at least nine to 12 months.
Car parking facilities will be out of bounds as work takes place.
NCH has appointed a liaison officer for each tower block so residents will have access to information and support during the whole term of the refurbishment work.
In coming weeks all residents will be visited and will receive full details on the project, including the possibility of a temporary home move if needed, as work is carried out.
A show flat will soon be open in each block so tenants can see what their home could look like.
For more information visit newportcityhomes.com or visit channel 624 on your local digi-tv service.
Comments(24)
jameshargreaves
says...
11:11am Fri 26 Oct 12
Strider
says...
11:13am Fri 26 Oct 12
Kevin Ward - Editor
says...
12:20pm Fri 26 Oct 12
If complaints are made about comments, and those comments are in breach of our terms and conditions then they are removed.
It's not censorship. If posters sign up to a set of rules they should abide by them. If they cannot, then they should not post on this site.
NakedDancer
says...
1:17pm Fri 26 Oct 12
OK it may cost more to demolish them and build proper housing but just bite the bullet and get it done properly.
chris227
says...
11:11pm Fri 26 Oct 12
Cantankerous
says...
8:24am Sat 27 Oct 12
Bobevans
says...
2:38pm Sat 27 Oct 12
Cantankerous wrote:The slight problem is the rents come nowhere near covering the costs
Housing association borrows the money, employment created, tenants' rents repay the borrowing, everyone is a winner - QED!
Cantankerous
says...
2:51pm Sat 27 Oct 12
Bobevans wrote:How would you know Bobevans?
Cantankerous wrote:The slight problem is the rents come nowhere near covering the costs
Housing association borrows the money, employment created, tenants' rents repay the borrowing, everyone is a winner - QED!
chris227
says...
3:42pm Sat 27 Oct 12
Cantankerous
says...
3:56pm Sun 28 Oct 12
Not complicated but most certainly not "a massive dss landlord" - that was somewhat offensive chris227 :-(
Bobevans
says...
8:50am Mon 29 Oct 12
chris227 wrote:Slight of hand mainly. Work it out £10M borrowed to refurb about 250 homes thats £40,000a flat and thats not inluuding interest. Average Social House Rent £250 a month.
bob just out of interest how does it work i thought they were just a massive dss landlord for want of a better word (like the old slum landlord but not making a profit)
This gives about a £400 a month shortfull per social home across Wales
So how does it work. The first trick was almost all the social homes were originally owned by the councils. They could not afford to maintain them so they transfered these homes which in effect were owned by the taxpayers to Housing aAssosiations at ZERO cost ie they gave them away
The Councils and the WAG also commited to providing the funds to modernize and upgrade the homes.
The Housing associations in turn agreed to build now social homes but to do that they need to borrow money. THis is where the next part of the trick comes in. They borrow against the assestvalue of the honmes as although they got them for nothing they do have a real market value.
The fundermental flaw in this is it is a bit like what Gordon Brown got up to. It works for a time only once the Housing Assosiation have borrowed to the limit against the Free Housing stock they no longer have access to borrowing money.
They also have the probblemthat the new houses they build have cost them real money but the rent they charge will not cover it sothey have to subsidise it but they can only do that by using the money they borrowed againt the Free Housing stock so pretty quickly the Housing Association will run out of money. May be 5 years, maybe 10. What happens then whoknows. Rents go up very significantly?
chris227
says...
8:30pm Mon 29 Oct 12
Cantankerous
says...
10:18pm Mon 29 Oct 12
Bobevans
says...
9:13am Tue 30 Oct 12
I had to laugh at a news item. The parents of a school wanted a Lollypop lady. The local council said they had no money so they said they would pay her wages. Typically they get about £3,800
The council then wrote back to them telling them it would cost. Now weep at this point. You just could not make it up
Salary & Administration £8342
Safety Audit, Recruitment,
Training & Infrustructure £27,342
Decomissioninhg
& Redundancy £19,500
A sensible cost in my view including wages would be about £5400
Councils must live in parrell universe they are certainly not in the real world
The mind boggles as well as to how you decommision a lollypop lady. All there would be to do would be to hand back her protective clothing and lollypop
chris227
says...
6:23pm Tue 30 Oct 12
co.uk/uk/2012/oct/29
/police-commissioner
-election-ballots-bl
under - public sector workers have no shame or do not know the value of money
The People's Republic of Newp
says...
2:49am Wed 31 Oct 12
chris227 wrote:Remarkably ill-informed and inaccurate.
oh now i see i actually went for a job in caerphilly for united welsh the offices were fab no expense spared, plasma tv's in reception and canteen etc and ones for newport housing look nice never been inside though ( not as plush as the WAG though , i think you have to visit a Russian Oligarch house in chelsea to beat them) . just wondered where all the cash was coming from.
Bobevans
says...
1:46pm Wed 31 Oct 12
If we assume 250 flats in these blocks and assume a market vvalue of £60K each that gives the Housing association £15M if equity they can borrow against
Now in the short term you can hold the rents down at unecomomic rates because they have very low costs but as new homes are built these are a real cost. They also have to pay the interest on the loans as well as paying out for maintainace costs. On the houses with real costs the rents will probably only cover about 25% of the total costs.
Bobevans
says...
1:46pm Wed 31 Oct 12
If we assume 250 flats in these blocks and assume a market vvalue of £60K each that gives the Housing association £15M if equity they can borrow against
Now in the short term you can hold the rents down at unecomomic rates because they have very low costs but as new homes are built these are a real cost. They also have to pay the interest on the loans as well as paying out for maintainace costs. On the houses with real costs the rents will probably only cover about 25% of the total costs.
Bobevans
says...
1:46pm Wed 31 Oct 12
If we assume 250 flats in these blocks and assume a market vvalue of £60K each that gives the Housing association £15M if equity they can borrow against
Now in the short term you can hold the rents down at unecomomic rates because they have very low costs but as new homes are built these are a real cost. They also have to pay the interest on the loans as well as paying out for maintainace costs. On the houses with real costs the rents will probably only cover about 25% of the total costs.
merlin the silure
says...
4:03pm Wed 31 Oct 12
Howie'
says...
12:58am Thu 1 Nov 12
Bobevans wrote:Never let facts get in the way of a good bit of BS eh, Bob. I demonstrated to you on the thread 'Wales to Build 7,500 affordable Homes' but you are still banging on with your rubbish with nothing to back it up.
Cantankerous wrote:The slight problem is the rents come nowhere near covering the costs
Housing association borrows the money, employment created, tenants' rents repay the borrowing, everyone is a winner - QED!
Howie'
says...
1:06am Thu 1 Nov 12
Bobevans wrote:£250 a month eh, Bob? You really do make it up as you go don't you. If you look on the 'Newport City Homes' social housing website:
chris227 wrote:Slight of hand mainly. Work it out £10M borrowed to refurb about 250 homes thats £40,000a flat and thats not inluuding interest. Average Social House Rent £250 a month.
bob just out of interest how does it work i thought they were just a massive dss landlord for want of a better word (like the old slum landlord but not making a profit)
This gives about a £400 a month shortfull per social home across Wales
So how does it work. The first trick was almost all the social homes were originally owned by the councils. They could not afford to maintain them so they transfered these homes which in effect were owned by the taxpayers to Housing aAssosiations at ZERO cost ie they gave them away
The Councils and the WAG also commited to providing the funds to modernize and upgrade the homes.
The Housing associations in turn agreed to build now social homes but to do that they need to borrow money. THis is where the next part of the trick comes in. They borrow against the assestvalue of the honmes as although they got them for nothing they do have a real market value.
The fundermental flaw in this is it is a bit like what Gordon Brown got up to. It works for a time only once the Housing Assosiation have borrowed to the limit against the Free Housing stock they no longer have access to borrowing money.
They also have the probblemthat the new houses they build have cost them real money but the rent they charge will not cover it sothey have to subsidise it but they can only do that by using the money they borrowed againt the Free Housing stock so pretty quickly the Housing Association will run out of money. May be 5 years, maybe 10. What happens then whoknows. Rents go up very significantly?
http://www.homeoptio
nsnewport.co.uk/Data
/ASPPages/1/43.aspx
There you will see houses from Pill and Maesglas. The Maesglas one is £89.47 pw or £377.40 a month + council tax and water rates, now stick with me on this Bob because I know it's difficult for you. If £377.40 represents 68% of what that house would go for in the private sector then the private rent would be £560.............ar
e you keeping up? Now do you think that is about correct that as I quoted 'insidehousing.co.uk ' as saying social housing rents are roughly 68% of private rents. Perhaps you would like to tell us all where you get the £250 per month figure from.
The rest of what you have stated is total rubbish, no point in asking you to back up these claims with some substantiated facts I suppose.............
..................No I thought not!
russ angel
says...
5:47am Fri 2 Nov 12
Limestonecowboy says...
6:57pm Thu 25 Oct 12
Many rely on old & inefficient heating systems which are expensive to run so this scheme can help those stay out of fuel poverty.
With respect to some of the unfortunate views (above) - our taxes also go towards the NHS so using that argument should care be withdrawn for someone unable to work due to life-theatening illness??