Affordable Homes for Arnside

Where

Briery Bank, Arnside.

Who

Initially Arnside Parish Council, latterly in partnership with South Lakes Housing Association. ACT conducted the Local Housing Needs Survey on behalf of the Parish Council.

Why

Perceived need for more affordable housing for local people. Arnside’s population of 2,233 at the 2021 Census showed a decline of 101 from the 2011 Census.

When

Commenced 2022 and ongoing; completion likely 2028. Local Housing Needs Survey conducted by ACT in January 2023 confirmed the housing need. Site finally purchased from landowner Persimmon Homes in June 2025. Design of the development is now underway.

What are you most proud of?

That the Parish Council took the lead in this scheme, secured the funding from South Lakes District Council to enable ACT to conduct the Local Housing Needs Survey and subsequently applied for a grant from SLDC to purchase the site. We hoped that the Parish Council would be able to purchase the site and lease it to a housing association on a long term lease of over a hundred years whilst maintaining a watchful oversight during the lease period. This could then form a model for other parish councils to follow.

How did you get people involved?

The expertise of ACT helped us secure a remarkable 85% support from respondees to the Housing Needs Survey for a small development of affordable homes for local people.

Presentations were given to the Annual Village meetings in 2023, 2024 and 2025 and full details were included in the regular Parish Council Newsletters.

Once the design is completed and construction is underway there will be further community meetings.

What difference did the project make?

It helped to establish the credibility of Arnside Parish Council with our local community and with the District Council and Unitary Authority. It will of course make a significant difference when completed.

What do you wish you had known at the start?

I wish we had known that the demise of South Lakeland District Council meant that their verbal promises to the Parish Council of successfully applying for the grant to purchase the site would be lost when Westmorland and Furness Council took over control. Our application in partnership with our selected housing association South Lakes Housing was considered but refused because the Parish Council was the lead applicant. South Lakes Housing then had to re-apply as the lead applicant using much of the same information supplied by the Parish Council’s rejected application. They were successful in their application.

This meant that the Parish Council would not own the land and therefore have no formal role within the process. Nonetheless we had established such a strong relationship with South Lakes Housing that they invited two Arnside Parish Councillors onto the Project Design Team and we were very pleased to accept.

What do you hope for the future of your project?

That the housing is successfully completed to a high standard of sustainability, to Passivhaus standard if possible, and to an overall standard at least as high as comparable open market housing.

Allocation of the homes to local people will be vital to the true success of the scheme.