The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) is working with Bolton Council and its partners in Bolton Community Homes to build 6,000 new homes through its ground breaking Transforming Estates initiative.

HCA has been working with Bolton Council and its ALMO, Bolton at Home, to develop a partnership which should be ready to start work by the summer of 2010.

Contracts are expected to be signed on the first sites this autumn to deliver the first 40 new affordable homes for rent and will go on to build a further 150 new homes the next year.


Deborah McLaughlin, Regional Director North West, for the HCA, said: "I am delighted that the Transforming Estates programme will get underway this autumn. Our role at the HCA is to create places where people choose, and can afford to live and I can think of no better example of our work on the ground than in Bolton. We have worked closely with the Council and their partners to develop this programme which will make such a difference to so many residents' lives."

Over the next 12 years, the Transforming Estates programme will:

• Deliver 6,000 homes, of which 3,000 will be for sale and 3,000 for affordable rent, the latter developed and managed by Bolton Community Homes
• The Council will contribute around 100 hectares of land that will be supported by an ambitious environmental programme - Great Estates - to transform the quality of these neighbourhoods
• Residents' involvement will be at the heart of all these improvements through innovative and inclusive consultation

(CD/GK)