The site of a former housing office is to be turned into 42 new affordable rented homes for more than 100 people.
The flats will be built in two blocks behind Portslade Town Hall, where the Victoria Road housing office stood, and on the bowling green – hoe to Portslade Bowls Club.
The bowling green and clubhouse are due to move across to the other side of the road, into Victoria Park, helped by a £340,000 grant from the government’s Land Release Fund.
The proposed northern block – closest to the 1920s town hall building – will be four storeys high and contain 17 flats. Four of them will have one bedroom and the rest will have two.
And the proposed southern block – nearer to the railway line – will be five storeys high and contain 25 flats.
Ten will have one bedroom, five will have two bedrooms and the remaining 10 will be three-bedroom flats.
The car park will have a new layout and should have 33 spaces for cars while there should also be room for two motorbikes and 66 bicycles.
The council has budgeted almost £13 million for the scheme which it hopes to complete within 18 months as part of its New Homes for Neighbourhoods programme. The budget includes £1.4 million for the land.
The base cost of the flats, according to the council, totals about £6 million – or £140,000 to £150,000 each – but the scheme’s overall budget means that each flat would cost just over £300,000.
The total cost of the new sports pavilion and bowling green in Victoria Park was reckoned to be about £781,000.
Tenants can expect to pay about £140 a week for a one-bed flat when the scheme is built. Two bed-flats would be let for £190 to £200 and three-bed flats for about £225.
Rents will go towards paying back the cost of building the properties over 60 years. They will be funded initially by receipts from council homes sold under the “right to buy” policy as well as from borrowing and the £340,000 government grant.
A decision on whether to grant planning permission for the scheme is expected by the end of the year.
