A borough event on Friday 30 October marked the completion of 452 council homes at Kidbrooke Park Road in south-east London. The development is entirely for social rent, with the council saying the homes are for local people on its housing register.
The council describes the project as the country’s largest entirely new-build council housing scheme. That description is the authority’s assessment of its national scale; the local milestone celebrated at the event was the completion of the 452-home development.
The scheme brings together homes ranging from one to four bedrooms, alongside a nursery, retail space and play areas. Its landscaping includes 200 planted trees, while a sustainable energy centre forms part of the development’s infrastructure.
One in ten homes are wheelchair accessible, the council says. Accessibility is therefore part of the provision across the scheme, rather than a feature confined to its outdoor spaces or community facilities.
Homes for the local housing register
The tenure is central to the project: all 452 homes are council homes for social rent. The council identifies local people on its housing register as the intended residents, placing the completed scheme within its provision of council housing.
The range of one- to four-bedroom properties means the development is not made up of a single size of home. That variety sits alongside the scheme’s consistent tenure, with social rent applying across the full housing total.
The completion milestone should not be confused with confirmation that every home is occupied. The council’s account concerns the completed development and the people for whom its housing is intended, rather than a stated total of residents who have already moved in.
Similarly, the wheelchair-accessibility figure describes the homes themselves. The stated proportion is one in ten, while the overall development contains 452 homes. Those are separate measures of the scheme’s scale and its accessible housing provision.
Facilities beyond the homes
Kidbrooke Park Road includes provision beyond its residential buildings. The nursery and retail space sit alongside the housing, with play areas and planted trees forming part of the wider setting. These features are included in the council’s description of the completed project.
The 200 trees provide a specific measure of the planting associated with the development. The sustainable energy centre is also listed among its features, although that description does not establish a quantified reduction in energy use or household bills.
The borough celebration on 30 October marked an official completion milestone. Completion had already been confirmed earlier that week, so the event was a public recognition of the finished scheme rather than its first disclosure.
A wider council-building programme
The development is part of the council’s wider Greenwich Builds programme. The authority says that programme has delivered more than 1,000 council homes out of a planned total of 1,750, putting the Kidbrooke completion in the context of a larger housing effort.
The programme figures distinguish homes delivered from the full planned total. More than 1,000 have been delivered, the council says; 1,750 remains the stated programme ambition, not a claim that all of those homes are already complete.
At Kidbrooke Park Road, the completed total is 452. The combination of social-rent housing, different bedroom sizes, wheelchair-accessible homes and supporting facilities defines the scheme celebrated by the borough, while the wider programme remains larger than this single development.
