A QUARRY will be developed into an estate of almost 100 affordable homes after plans were approved by Bradford Council.

An application for 98 homes at the former Chellow Grange Quarry, submitted by the Home Group and Strategic Team Group, was submitted in March. It has now been approved by planning officers, who say it will provide “much needed affordable housing” for the area.

However, before work on the housing starts, 35,618 cubic metres of material will have to be brought in to fill the former quarry, at Hawroth Road in Heaton, and this work could take up to six months.

When the plans were submitted the applicants said the first houses would be ready for occupation around 13 months after work started on site.

The houses on the site will be a mixture of 30 per cent shared ownership and 70 per cent will be provided as “affordable” or social rent.

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There would be twelve one-bedroom apartments, 53 two-bedroom homes and 33 three-bedroom homes.

The approval comes as Bradford Council is due to receive an update on efforts to build more affordable housing in the Bradford District. The Council’s Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee will be given an update on the affordable housing programme at a meeting in City Hall this evening.

Members will be told despite a target of 411 new affordable houses in the District each year, that figure was just 267 in the last financial year. A report to the committee says: “delivery still falls some way short of the target.”

The planning application for Chellow Grange Quarry was approved by planning officers last month. The Council said it did not need to go before a planning committee as there had been just five objections.

Officers pointed out the benefits of a development of almost 100 affordable homes. The planning decision said: “The site is not safeguarded for any other purpose and the delivery of housing on this site would assist in the achievement of the overall housing target for this area.

“The site is no longer an operational quarry and has not been for a considerable number of years.

“Despite the delivery of new affordable homes the overall amount of social homes has remained relatively static over the last decade largely due to the loss of social housing through Right to Buy and demolitions of low demand/poor quality stock.

“The number of households renting from a private landlord in the District has increased significantly over the last decade.

“The proposal provides much needed affordable housing, include flats and 2/3 bedroom family homes to the residents of Bradford.

“The proposed development is considered to deliver a significant number of residential units which cater for people on lower incomes, in an area where there is currently a limited supply of such units.”

One condition of the application is that electric car charging points are installed on the site.

Home Group is a social enterprise and charity which houses more than 116,000 people a year in around 55,000 homes. Over the next five years, it is due to build 10,000 new homes.

Strategic Team Group specialises in delivering mixed tenure housing developments across Yorkshire and the North West.

The Regeneration and Environment Committee meets at 5.30pm in City Hall tonight.