Royal Oak - Stockport Gets Some Quality New Homes

HOW much do young people want a nice place of their own?

 “Everyone should have access to decent housing and its great seeing people’s reaction when they come here and realise that it is an option and it is within their reach. 

When Equity Housing launched the Royal Oak scheme on the edge of Stockport town centre, 24 of the apartments were made available for rent. 

Within days they were swamped with more than 100 applications and they have since had to close the books.

Jacquie Connor, from Equity said: “It’s heartbreaking really. I have had people on the phone begging to be considered. I think the reaction shows just how difficult people are finding it at the moment and the desperate need for more affordable housing.” 

The apartments are available at 80% of the current market rent, that’s around £456 for a two bed – but they also had to turn away people who wanted to be here but actually earned too much to qualify. 

They instead are steered towards buying one of the apartments under shared ownership.

Unlike Shared Equity which many developers offer, Shared Ownership allows you to buy a much smaller stake in the property, in this case a low of 60%, but you then also have to pay rent on the other portion. 

As an example you can buy a 60% share of a two bed with a full price of £97,950 for £58,650 with an additional monthly rent of £97.75. 

This lower share suddenly makes buying an option if you earn between £15,000-£20,000.

According to Jacquie the main difficulty has been persuading young couples that buying even 60% is still beyond their means. 

She said: “Many have been watching the build and were excited to come for a look when we launched and absolutely love the apartments and the amount of space and desperately want to live here. 

“But then we sit them down and go through all their outgoings and reality begins to set in. Because what we absolutely never do is encourage people into a situation where they get into financial difficulties. 

“They think they will be able to live on £200 a month but we know they won’t and we have to turn them down.” 

Ideally Equity want only 35% of a person’s income to be spent on housing, and that has to cover not just the mortgage repayments but the additional rent and the service charge for general maintenance.

Each case varies obviously which is why they like to chat to people face to face and go through individual finances to try and find a solution. 

Another stumbling block can be the actual mortgage with only a few lenders comfortable with shared ownership and you have to be in full-time work and you have to have a good credit rating.

Despite the strict rules and many disappointed would-be buyers they have, to date, sold 14 of the 27 available for Shared Ownership. 

The first to go was the duplex penthouse now sitting atop the original brewery building which has a wide roof terrace and has been bought by a young couple from Stockport. 

The other penthouses in the two new wings have also both sold which shows a certain ambition I think of kids nowadays. They like to have the latest and they like to have the best.

But interestingly it’s the apartments in the older section of the brewery building, with its exposed brickwork and character windows that have been most popular. 

Originally a cotton mill stood on the site but it burnt down and was replaced by the brewery whose distinctive outline, designed by architects Stott & Sons, is a prominent local landmark. The shaft which held the original winding mechanism has been retained now flanked with dark glass and steel and from inside the old building you can, apparently, peer down into its workings. 

The restoration and the new additions are the work of Stockport based architects TADW. For me there’s so much going on with the steel and the render and the terracotta and the black and the grey that the original lovely brick building with its symmetry of windows looks swamped. 

But maybe that’s because it’s still in its ugly duckling stage and I will be interested to see it when all the finishes are complete and the courtyard in front has been grassed over. 

And the space inside the new additions is generous and well done. They have dressed one of the bigger two beds on the ground floor as a show apartment and it’s easy to see why people are desperate to move out of shabby rented or their parents back bedroom and move in here.

The large rectangular living room has a kitchen at one end with a wide range of units and while all the white goodies are not supplied there is a space planned in for a fridge freezer and a washer. 

There’s a house bathroom and two very good sized double bedrooms with ample room for furniture and this one comes with an en-suite shower room, which means that if money did get a bit tight you could always rent out the second room to a friend. 

There’s also a useful storage cupboard. 

Apartments higher up in the new build sections will have floor to ceiling windows and balconies. 

The Royal Oak scheme needed £2.4m of funding from the Homes and Communities Agency to kick start it into life again after the original contractors went bust but ask the hundred or so people looking to make their home here if it is money well spent and they will undoubtedly say it is. 

The reason Equity needs to sell half – despite the over-subscribed rentals – is that it needs the money back to invest in the next, much needed affordable scheme, which is apparently earmarked for Wilmslow. 

It’s an ambitious social housing provider and has just tempted Mike Kennedy, boss of Hillcrest Homes which built the perfectly formed The Square in Didsbury, featured on ManCon last week, onto its board. (He had to dash away from its launch to get to Cheadle Hulme for an Equity meeting.) 

For Jacquie it is all about giving people a decent home, whether it’s one to rent or ultimately one to buy. 

She said: “Everyone should have access to decent housing and its great seeing people’s reaction when they come here and realise that it is an option and it is within their reach. We are here to give people the opportunity to buy into the future.” 

More info here. There are some interesting photos of what the brewery looked like before work started here.

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