Coming home to the community

Returning to Keynsham has been a big deal for Rachael Dunster-Horseman. She loves the community she grew up in, and only reluctantly left when she joined the council’s housing waiting list and was offered a home in Twerton, Bath.

‘I felt it was either that or nothing, so of course I had to accept,’ explains Rachael. ‘I was just pleased to have a roof over my head for me and my daughter.’ However, when her husband Dean moved in, and they had a baby of their own, the house became very cramped.

 

They tried in vain to move out. ‘We were looking around seriously for four years and considered everything,’ says Dean, ‘a mutual exchange, going back on the housing waiting list again, renting privately; we even emailed our MP. We were getting very frustrated and just wanted to move out.’

 

‘It wasn’t that Bath was bad, but the house was too small and I really missed Keynsham and wanted to go back,’ explains Rachael. ‘It’s a friendly town with a nice atmosphere and a strong community.’ Dean comes from Hanham, near Bristol, and also wanted to be closer to his family and work.

 

Their persistence paid off and they were the first people to enquire about new homes that were being built at Caernarvon Road in Keynsham. Rachael says, ‘I remembered the old flats that were there and when I heard they were going to be redeveloped, we wondered if there might be an opportunity for us and called the number on the signboard at the site.’

 

In fact, they’d come across the first homes to be built in a major redevelopment project by the Trust to deal with its remaining pre-cast reinforced concrete (PRC) homes, demolishing and replacing 191 properties across five areas in Bath and Keynsham. These were built in large numbers in the post-war years and, as a result of structural problems have been technically classed as defective.

 

The Trust has used the opportunity to increase the amount of affordable housing in Keynsham. Of the 40 homes, 23 are for rent to people registered with Homesearch (which administers Bath and North East Somerset Council’s waiting list for affordable housing), while 17 have been made available through the Trust’s ‘Rent to Buy’ scheme.

 

‘We did consider buying a house, but although we saved and saved, could never afford it,’ explains Dean. ‘Now you can’t get a mortgage anywhere! Rent to HomeBuy means we can rent the house for up to three years and when we’re ready to buy, we don’t have to find the full purchase price. Instead we can buy a percentage of the house and increase it when we’re able to. It’s a good way of getting on the housing ladder.’

 

The move has come just in time for their 11-year-old daughter, who was desperate to go to Wellsway School in Keynsham with all her friends. Rachael explains, ‘She stayed in primary school in Keynsham while we lived in Bath, but Wellsway couldn’t accept her because we were out of its catchment area. So the timing was ideal – we had appealed before we heard that we had got the house, but once we told them our new address, they sent a letter saying she’d been given a place. She’s thrilled.’

 

That goes for the house too, where both girls now have their own bedroom and a garden to play in. ‘The house is great,’ says Dean, ‘we love it. We watched them being built, and the finished homes look really good. The cul-de-sac is quieter than where we were in Bath and there’s a grassed area, so it’s safer for the kids to play.’

 

As for the new community that’s been created at Caernarvon Road, Rachael is positive about that too: ‘We’ve had some ‘meet your neighbour’ events and the Trust held a street party for everyone, so we know a few of them and the children play together. Everyone here seems quite nice, but it takes time to get to know people. Mind you, we intend to stay here a long time. We’re in no hurry to move.’