The development will deliver a mix of apartments and houses, ranging in sizes from one to four bedrooms – all of which will be made available for either affordable rent or shared ownership.

The site, located on Harrow Lane, will be delivered as part of ilke Homes’ turnkey offering – by which it acquires land, gains planning permission, manufactures the homes and develops the site. By taking charge of the full construction programme, ilke Homes is able to provide councils and clients with certainty that sites will be delivered on time and to budget.

Precision-engineering techniques mean that ilke Homes will be able to deliver the 140 affordable homes in half the time of traditional methods, thanks to most of the construction stage taking place offsite. By manufacturing offsite, the homes delivered will be of the highest quality, as ilke Homes is able to benchmark standards at numerous stages of the build cycle.

Once complete, the homes and complementing open spaces will be managed by a national registered provider of affordable homes.

Tom Heathcote, executive director of development at ilke Homes, said:

“ilke Homes is increasingly becoming a partner of choice for local authorities looking to scale up the delivery of energy-efficient, affordable housing, and this deal is testament to that. Our accredited modular methods of delivery will ensure that these homes help Hastings Borough Council, who in 2019 declared a climate emergency, meet carbon reduction targets while simultaneously delivering well in excess of the 40 percent policy compliant provision of affordable housing required by the outline planning permission.”

“We look forward to working with both local planning officials and other stakeholders to finalise plans for what will be a truly well-designed community that will be providing much-needed affordable housing for the area.”

Cllr Andy Batsford, lead councillor for housing at Hastings Borough Council, said:

“With land owned by the council available for housing and development in short supply it was essential that we found like-minded partners who can deliver the type of homes we as a town desperately need, namely truly affordable ones.”

“We are really excited to see a new provider in town delivering just that – 70 affordable rented homes which will be allocated to our local people and families on the housing list who will be able to move into energy efficient, modern, well designed secure homes. Hastings Borough Council is determined to deliver on its promise of 500 affordable rented homes and this is a great start and look forward to seeing those Hastings families move in very soon.”