Former Chaddesden family centre set for demolition as council seeks land for new homes

Demolition is planned on a Derby residential street as council chiefs step up plans to turn brownfield sites into new housing. A new planning application from Derby City Council has been submitted to bulldoze the former Bute Walk Family Centre in Nairn Avenue, Chaddesden.

The council wants to demolish the vacant site and transform the area into five new council homes, which will be managed by the council’s social housing company Derby Homes should they be given the green light. Planning documents state the site used to be a former children’s home. A previous council-led planning permission for the site to be turned into apartments was approved in 2019 but failed to materialise.

Three of the five new homes now planned will be two-bed and the remaining two houses will have just one bedroom each. Each house will have a private garden area and car parking space.

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The council says it wants to spruce up the run-down area as it looks for “regeneration opportunities” for new housing. The site is not within a Conservation area or any other area of designation for heritage purposes.

A planning statement reads: “The development is considered to be a positive addition and regeneration opportunity of underused land to the local area as well as the wider community and, therefore, will be in accordance with the NPPF requirements and local planning policy in terms of residential development of brownfield sites in a sustainable location.”

News of the planning application comes at a time when it has been reported that thousands of people are on a waiting list for a council house in Derby. The problem is said to be that more and more people are registering their demand for council homes at a time when not many council homes are available to live in. This is happening across the UK and not just in Derby.

Currently, Derby has around 12,000 council homes across the city. Former council leader Baggy Shanker said he suspected the figure was once double that but claimed so many had been lost through Right To Buy – a scheme allowing tenants to buy their council homes – over recent decades.

In the summer the council said it was “working hard to address these issues by expanding our stock of affordable housing at sites around the city”.

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