Providing affordable rural homes

Colin and Maggie Fisher moved to the rural market town of Leyburn in North Yorkshire 18 years ago.

They lived in a second floor flat owned by Richmondshire District Council and very quickly fell in love with the town, finding jobs in a GP surgery (Maggie) and shop (Colin) and making new friends.

Unfortunately, in 2012 Colin was admitted to hospital suffering from chest pain and needed to have a stent fitted after scans had revealed 90% of his one of his major arteries and had become blocked.

This had a detrimental impact on his health, and he found getting up the stairs to their flat much more difficult. Maggie was then also diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and associated arthritis, so the couple realised they needed to find somewhere more suitable for them to live.

Wanting to remain in the town that had become their homes, they looked at the North Yorkshire Home Choice website, a Choice Based Lettings (CBL) Scheme that advertises council and housing association properties for rent.

They found two new build bungalows which had been allocated to Broadacres under a section 106 agreement, which requires private housebuilders to allocate a proportion of homes on a new development for affordable housing.

They applied and were successful in their application, so five years ago they moved into the two-bedroom bungalow, still in Leyburn.

They say it’s the best move they could have made.

Colin and Maggie say: “From day 1, Broadacres have been excellent. They carried out adaptations to the house, such as replacing a bath with a wet room which makes it much easier for us and over the years they have always been very responsive, carrying out work we have requested and even putting in better quality fixtures and fittings than the developer originally did.

“One of the best things is that we have never felt we are living in a house owned by someone else.

“Broadacres have always encouraged us to treat the home as our own and been very respectful towards us.

“We love living in Leyburn, but we may well have had to look elsewhere had it not been for Broadacres, because there is a lack of affordable housing in the town and renting privately would have been too expensive and given us less security.

“Moving into the bungalow has not only been a godsend for us from a health point of view; it’s also enabled us to remain in Leyburn, in a place we are proud to call home.”