Eight new affordable homes created in King’s Lynn following Broadland Housing regeneration project

Eight new affordable homes in the heart of Lynn have been handed over after the culmination of a £1.6million project to regenerate an existing commercial building.

Jenny Watson, chair of Broadland Housing, handed over the keys to one of the flats to Egle Čyvaitė, the first tenant to move into the new development, at a ceremony at the Tower Place site.

A partnership between Broadland Housing Association, Homes England and local developer Dwellings4U has seen four flats created on the existing first floor of the building, which was formerly office space, and an additional floor added on top of the building to create a further four flats.

All eight of the new homes - four one-bedroom flats and four two-bedroom flats - will be made available for social rent, which means that the rent will be set considerably below market rate.

Ms Čyvaitė, a hotel worker who is currently recovering from cancer, has been living in a single private-rented room throughout the four years she has been battling the disease.

“This is my dream, a chance for a new start,” she said.

“I am so lucky. When they told me I was going to live here I wanted to cry.

“It has been so hard enduring chemotherapy and radiotherapy while going through the stress of not having somewhere to live.”

Michael Newey, chief executive of Broadland Housing, said, “This is a really good example of how you can use a creative approach to take a largely disused building and turn it into much-needed affordable homes.

“We are delighted to be able to offer these homes at a social rent, which means they will be genuinely affordable.”

Craig Roberts of Dwellings4U, which is based in the town, outlined how the building had presented a number of challenges.

“We have added a timber framed extra floor on top the steel frame of the existing building,” he said.

“We found very few right angles, so it has not been straightforward, but we are very pleased to have delivered eight new homes for Broadland Housing.”

The new homes were made possible with an £800,000 grant from Homes England and £800,000 of funding from Broadland Housing Association.