Up to 56 new affordable homes are set to be built in Adur under a new £15m scheme to meet a growing need within the district.

Councillors have green-lighted the plan to build on council-owned small spaces and garage sites as the housing waiting list for affordable council rented houses grow to 700 families. A further 40 households are currently in temporary accommodation awaiting homes. An initial shortlist of potential development sites has now been whittled down to nine which will be further evaluated and subject to the planning process before building begins.

Following consultation with local residents, some garages are to be retained in Mash Barn ward and extra car parking added. In total 295 garages will be demolished if all the sites go ahead with replacements sought for high-priority users and investigations are ongoing to provide some extra surface parking.

Cllr Carson Albury, Adur District Council’s Executive Member for Customer Services, said: “This is a really imaginative scheme that addresses our growing need to provide affordable rented properties for people in Adur. Most of these garages are currently under-utilised, being used for storage rather than their original purpose of providing shelter for vehicles.

“We are looking at brownfield council-owned sites because that both protect green areas and also means we can move a little bit quicker to get these homes built.

“I want to thank local residents for their involvement in consultations. We will do all we can to address some of their concerns and balance those with the desperate need, we have to build more homes for our people in need.”

The areas now on the shortlist are Daniel Close, Gravelly Crescent, Wilmot Road, Gardner Road, Sylvan Road, Leconfield Road, Brighton Road and St Giles Close. At a meeting of Adur & Worthing Councils’ Joint Strategic Committee concern was raised over the financial viability of the Downsway site in Southwick and this will now be reexamined.

The council houses will be a mixture of one, two and three bedroomed and will be built to the latest sustainable standards including the use of energy-efficient heat pumps. The scheme would be funded by council borrowing and a £2m grant from government body Homes England. The homes are intended to be set at affordable levels as set by the government, which is 80 per cent of market value rents.

Visit www.adur-worthing.gov.uk/ for more information.