New council homes planned for old Bootle High School site

Sefton Council has confirmed its plan to develop the former Bootle High School site and further increase social housing in the borough.

At a cabinet meeting at Bootle Town Hall, members were briefed on the council’s plan to re-enter the council house building market. This was a historic moment for the local authority as they had not run any social housing since 2006 when they approved a large scale voluntary transfer (LSVT) of their stock of over 20,000 homes to One Vision Housing.

The ECHO understands that Sefton Council has no plans in place to develop a housing program to rival its former portfolio, but they have embarked on several new projects. Due to an absence of almost 20 years in the social housing space, the local authority will take a cautious approach and look for development opportunities that fit within budget constraints.

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The council has around £5m of capital available to fund the purchase of more social housing as a result of the receipt sharing agreement with One Vision Housing and from commuted sums secured through Section 106 agreements. As a result, the borough will look to expand its portfolio in the coming years.

Sefton Council is now registered with the Social Housing Regulator as a social housing provider and has already secured a managing agent to handle the day-to-day operations of their planned schemes – including their Buckley Hill Lane project.

Over the past few years central government has increasingly accepted that councils need to play a bigger role in meeting new housing targets. Although very little additional housing has been developed in the last 50 years, the active participation of local councils acting as developers and landlords is actively encouraged.

Sefton Council has responded to this expectation by setting up Sandway Homes, its wholly owned private housing development company.

Sandway Homes will build the homes at Molyneux Gardens on Buckley Hill Lane in Netherton and the project will include 18 social rental homes, representing the council’s first new housing initiative since 2006. The project was made possible after Sefton secured its preferred partner with Homes England. which allowed them to bid for grant funding.

The council subsequently applied for financial support from Homes England and received more than £1 million for (1,068) to support the project at Buckley Hill Lane. The approved funding of £1m equates to almost 40% of the total cost of the scheme.

Handover is scheduled for April 2025 and the allocation will be managed through Property Pool Plus (PPP) – a platform created to list available and affordable homes to rent in the Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton, Wirral, Runcorn or Widnes areas.

Allocation will be determined through the need-based system already in use on the PPP website. In Sefton, the average waiting time for people bidding on social housing and securing a property is just over a year.

Around 200 households live in temporary housing in the district, which has a profound impact on the lives of those affected and presents a significant financial cost to the council. The authority hopes the direct provision of social housing will help those in desperate need of affordable and stable housing in the borough.

Service Manager for Housing and Investment Services at Sefton Council, Lee Payne said good progress was being made in developing more homes for the council and outlined the council’s work plan. This includes the Buckley Hill Lane development, but also new projects at the former Bootle High School site and Benthams Way.

Bootle High School was located on Browns Lane in Netherton until it closed in 2009 following a merger with a newly built Litherland High School. The site has been unused for the past 15 years and the planned scheme would create a further 8 new affordable social homes for rent.

Full details of the new building project at Bootle High School have yet to be revealed, but the news is another indication of Sefton Council’s commitment to creating more social housing for their communities.

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