An Angus housing developer, with nearly 400 homes in the pipeline for the region, has said the market for new houses is showing no sign of picking up.
Mark Guild of Forfar-based Guild Homes said that while his firm was busy with upcoming and ongoing developments in Kirriemuir, Friockheim and Forfar, the wider market was still sluggish.
The company are building around one house a week, sticking to its policy of only constructing a home after it has been paid for by the customer.
The much anticipated new 40-50 home site in Friockheim has now been granted the first stage of approval by Angus Council and there has already been a great deal of interest, with a waiting list for potential buyers.
Mr Guild said, “We got outline planning consent quite recently and will be lodging a full application in the near future. The application will go away very shortly and by the end of the year we are hoping to get started.
“There is a crop to come off the field around the end of September and then we will look to go from there.”
Mr Guild added that his firm is at various stages on their sites around Angus, with work on 113 homes in Kirriemuir under way and plans in place for a further 220 in Forfar.
He said, “We are building new houses in Kirriemuir just now. At one time we would be building just 20 houses a year, whereas this year we are building 48.”
“The housing market is still shot, but we sell them before we build them and tailor the houses to people’s requirements. That is the benefit of being a small family firm.”
The Friockheim project at Gardyne Street represents a significant expansion for the town and may include a new health centre. A site of 7.4 hectares has been earmarked, which is identified in the Angus local plan as a potential housing area.
At present the land is open farm ground but the applicants say their proposal will meet the local authority’s development brief and allow for an integrated and planned expansion of the community.
Guild Homes proposes to take access from Gardyne Street to a residential development of primarily three and four-bedroom homes, with talks already under way with Angus Housing Association over the requisite 20% affordable housing allocation.
An open space provision of just over two acres has been set aside for the north-west of the development, with 1.36 acres for the health centre, to include off-street parking and pharmacy premises.