Six-month target to start building 87 new flats in Hemel Hempstead

Last week the Hemel Gazette reported that demolition work had begun on razing the old Viking House offices to the ground.

The five-storey building in Swallowdale Lane has been vacant for a number of years, but was purchased by Hightown Housing Association in 2014.

Bulldozers have already started to pull down the old office block, but a minor planning application submitted by Hightown details that work on erecting the new homes will not begin for at least another six months.

There are a number of conditions of the planning permission, and one is that developers must submit a traffic management system.

But an application has been made to remove that condition, as Hightown has yet to appoint a contractor to oversee the development.

Hightown’s Nigel Roberts said: “Construction work is not due to start until the summer so we can’t provide any detail for a traffic management system.

“We have not employed a main contractor but we are out to tender at the moment and I think that will be about six months.”

The wait should be worth it for Hemel residents who are struggling to get on the property ladder, as 35 per cent of the 87 one and two-bedroom flats would be ‘affordable’.