Regeneration fit for Royalty
Residents at the Kings Crescent Estate welcomed royalty yesterday when HRH The Duke of Kent visited Hackney for a tour of one of the Council’s landmark regeneration schemes.
The Duke donned a hard hat to see how some of the 765 new and refurbished homes for social rent, shared ownership and outright sale are being built by the Council’s partner Higgins Construction for local people – as well as meeting residents who have found jobs and apprenticeships through the work.
The £100million, five-year project is one of Hackney’s largest regeneration schemes, and is part of the Council’s borough-wide programme to deliver nearly 3,000 new homes across 18 sites – with more than half for Council social rent and low-cost home ownership.
As well as new modern, high-quality homes, more than 100 existing Council properties have been refurbished and provided with new balconies – while a new community centre, retail space, nearly 100 new trees and revamped public spaces will also be provided. The scheme is also delivering new jobs and training opportunities for Hackney residents.
It was an honour to join the Speaker in welcoming His Royal Highness to Kings Crescent to show him how the fantastic partnership between residents, the Council and Higgins is delivering vital new homes for local people.
I’m proud that Hackney is delivering more social housing than anywhere else in London, and through our ambitious regeneration programme we’ll do all we can to build the housing that Hackney needs.
Residents are expected to move into the first new homes next year once construction on the first phase of the regeneration scheme is completed.
For more information, visit the Kings Crescent Regeneration webpage.
It was a real honour to be able to show His Royal Highness around Kings Crescent Estate and see for himself the progress being made on site. As part of the tour he was also able to meet several of the local residents who have been employed on site as part of our Local Labour Initiative.
Currently 24% of our labour on site comes from the local area, ranging from labourers, traffic marshals, data coordinators and site administration. We are extremely proud of this and committed as an organisation to training and development through apprenticeship schemes and academy programmes.