Karbon Homes’ flagship Seaham Garden Village development in County Durham hits its two year anniversary since work started onsite with construction partner, Esh Construction.
Since July 2024, construction has begun on 213 affordable homes on the garden village site, 49 of are completed and welcomed new residents at the start of this year.
Sarah Robson, Group Executive Director of Development and Asset Management at Karbon Homes said: “It’s great to see our first customers moving into Seaham Garden Village, as we lay the foundations for a thriving new community with great quality design, affordable warmth and sustainability at its heart. There’s been a lot of collaboration and work from many partners to get to this point and seeing our first customers move in is testament to this.”
Karbon is delivering half of the total 1,500 homes that will create one of only a handful of ‘garden villages’ in the North East. The homes from Karbon will be available for a mix of social rent, affordable rent and affordable home ownership schemes ‘Rent to Buy’ and ‘Shared Ownership’.
They will be heated via an ultra-low carbon heat network, which draws on warm, underground water being pumped from former mine shafts, through a heat exchange, into a district heat network. Combined with solar panels and battery storage, the homes will be cheaper to run for customers.
James Price is one of the first residents to move in with Karbon. James and his partner moved into their new Rent to Buy home on Seaham Garden Village in December. The Rent to Buy scheme supports customers in getting onto the property ladder. As rents are set at 20% less than local market rent, it offers the opportunity to save towards a deposit.
James told us: “We’re so glad we made the move to Seaham Garden Village. Lots of things just fell into place and we’re really happy. We’ve got so much more space, as well as our own garden and driveway, which has had the added bonus of enabling me to get an electric car. So rather than having to spend a fortune on petrol, I can charge it overnight for just £1.50. We are really enjoying living here and the service has been great from start to finish.”
Future phases of development on the site, delivered by Esh, will include 118 Extra Care apartments, designed to help people with differing levels of care and support needs to live well and independently, and 93 apartments for over 55s. This illustrates Karbon’s commitment to building a mixed community and ensuring Seaham Garden Village offers something for residents of all stages of life.
Mark Binns, Operations Director at Esh Construction, said: “Reaching the two-year milestone at Seaham Garden Village is a significant achievement for everyone involved in the development. Through our close partnership with Karbon Homes, we’ve made excellent progress in bringing this vision to life, with the first residents now settled into their new homes and hundreds more properties progressing across the site.”
The 750 affordable homes from Karbon are being part-funded by Homes England, through Karbon’s Strategic Partnership with the government’s housing delivery agency.
Alongside Karbon’s 750 homes, the remaining 750 homes on the site are being developed by national housebuilders Taylor Wimpey and Miller Homes for outright sale. The new village will also have its own community facilities, including a new primary school and health and wellbeing hub.