Homes England Buys Worthing's Teville Gate With Plan For 250 New Homes

Worthing Borough Council has accepted a £5.1million offer from Homes England for the Teville Gate site.

At the council’s cabinet meeting on Thursday, March 14, members accepted the offer for the freehold of the site, on which Homes England hopes to get 250 built.

Homes England is a national government agency which ‘funds new affordable homes’ in England, according to its website, and is not itself a developer.

The council purchased the site in 2021 for £7million, with the total debt associated with the site at about £7.4 million including fees and charges.

This site sale is hoped to go through this month, reducing the council’s overall debt on the site to around £2.1million, paying an annual interest rate of about £112,000.

Teville Gate is earmarked in the council’s local plan for 250 homes to be built at some point over the period of 2020/25.

The council’s cabinet member for regeneration, Caroline Baxter (Lab, Central), said this site had been left derelict for 20 years and had had ‘many a broken promise’ – but that Homes England was as ‘committed’ to regeneration of the site as the council.

She said: “Following months of negotiations with Homes England, we have now received an offer that will transform the site into a vibrant and thriving community asset. There are huge benefits to Worthing from this offer. The immediate capital receipt will act as an immediate injection of funds into the council – the receipt will significantly reduce the debt associated with the site purchase.”

She added the reduction in interest payments over the next three years would save the council roughly £850,000 to invest in other projects in Worthing.

This and the reduction in minimum revenue provision (MRP) charge over time, she said, would provide ‘long-term financial relief’ for the council.

The council said the HMRC car park would remain open for the next three years, with the council retaining revenue and expecting about £300,000 over the period.

Previous plans for Teville Gate, approved by the council in 2022, could have seen housing association Hyde Housing build 343 homes at a 100 per cent affordable housing rate, potentially with £28million of Homes England funding.

Thee plans were scrapped after Labour took control of the council from the Conservatives in May, 2022. 

Opposition Leader Kevin Jenkins (Con, Goring) said the news was the ‘final nail in the coffin’ for many families who need housing in Worthing, because of the reduction in number of homes from previous proposals.

He said the administration had ‘wasted’ the initial period to work with and move-on the site with a developer, and get spades in the ground.

Mr Jenkins added: “Now we are seeing them off-load it from the council’s books and wash their hands of it. Homes England are not a developer, they are a government owned regeneration agency, who will now landbank this site whilst they tout it around for a developer.

“So, in this decision we see lost homes, lost jobs and lost capital receipts, whilst at the same time the council has picked up a larger interest bill on its borrowing.”