DIY flats scheme for young home-hunters (From The Oxford Times)
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DIY flats scheme for young home-hunters
2:00pm Sunday 10th March 2013 in News
Ann Bonner
YOUNG peoples are to help refurbish a 150-year-old “eyesore” building for affordable flats which they will then live in.
Cherwell District Council has bought 1 West Street in Grimsbury from a housing association to turn it into five, one and two-bedroom flats.
The building has been empty for about five years and is fenced off with metal plates over the windows. It will include a communal garden, patio, parking area and bike racks and will be offered on shared-ownership basis.
Ann Bonner, a member for Banbury Grimsbury and Castle, hailed the recent sale of the property as “fantastic news”. Work is expected to start in the summer and finish in the spring. She said: “It has taken years of hard work so I am absolutely jubilant that we have finally secured a deal for this property. This will become a focal point for the start of the conservation area in Grimsbury.”
It is part of the council’s Build! project which gets young people to help refurbish or build homes they then live in.
