AFFORDABLE DEVELOPMENT HELPS PUB DREAM BECOME REALITY

With the theme ‘Delivering the Ambition’, Rural Housing Week is reinforcing the message this week that affordable housing is vital for the survival of rural communities and services.

We are dedicated to building not-for-profit housing in the Warwickshire villages where there is greatest need.  By developing homes specifically for local people, and reinvesting in our communities, we are helping to bring sustainability to our rural villages for the generations to come.

In Norton Lindsey, our development has helped to enable a village dream for the county’s first community pub to become a reality.

With house prices soaring in the village, the affordable development enabled local people to continue living in Norton Lindsey.  As a result, when the future of the village pub was threatened, villagers launched a campaign to raise the funds to buy it and run it as a community concern.

The New Inn opened its doors to its first customers in April 2017 and plans are underway to create a community hub for local groups, a village shop and parcel pickup point.

WRHA resident, Sammie Mazey, says it has meant the world to her to be able to stay in the area she grew up in and to live within minutes of her children’s nan, grandad and cousins.

Sammie, who has three children, says: “I’d managed to afford to live in Norton Lindsey but the property was very small and I had a baby on the way.  I don’t think I could have got a buggy through the door!

“When I was offered a two bedroom house by WRHA I was absolutely delighted.  I love the community spirit in Norton Lindsey.  I think it’s terrific what the villagers have achieved with the pub, and a community shop will be great.

“I really do feel at home here and I very much hope my children will too as they grow up.”