New Rhyl houses built on site of homes immortalised by Lowry

The Edward Henry Street scheme, led by housing association ClwydAlyn, has seen 13 three-bedroom, affordable, energy efficient houses built, replacing 33 now-demolished flats.

In doing so, the houses which formed a 1929 sketch by the artist, LS Lowry, have been replaced.

A £3.89million project, the houses will become occupied by new tenants from Monday (December 2).

Key stakeholders and dignitaries, including the mayor of Rhyl, Cllr Cheryl Williams, attended a special event to celebrate the completion of the project on Wednesday (November 27).

Rhyl-based firm, NWPS Construction LTD, delivered the construction work, with the properties’ heating and energy coming from air source heat pumps and solar panels.

Their timber-framed structures and high insulation levels add to their energy efficiency, while they each have 40m² of garden space for, a patio, and an outdoor storage area.

Each property also has its own car parking space and electric vehicle charging point, while some include exterior bird spikes to deter seagulls and a hole in its fence panels for hedgehogs to move through.

ClwydAlyn's new houses on Edward Henry Street, Rhyl (Image: Newsquest) Craig Sparrow, executive director of development at ClwydAlyn, said: “It’s never easy doing a regeneration project, but we’re really pleased with it now. They’ve proved really popular.

“It’s great to take away flats and replace them with houses, and change the demographic of some of the area.

“You could quite easily build 40 flats on here, but that was never the right thing to do. You can’t put a family with four kids in a flat. If you just cram in density all the time, you’re not changing the area.

ClwydAlyn's new houses on Edward Henry Street, Rhyl (Image: Newsquest) “I’m from Rhyl, and this street did have a bad reputation. At one time, people wouldn’t have wanted to live in Edward Henry Street. Once you do something like this, it changes people’s minds.

“You’re close to all of the facilities in Rhyl here, you can have reduced car ownership, they’re big houses, and they’re so energy efficient that bills are going to be really low.”

ClwydAlyn's new houses on Edward Henry Street, Rhyl (Image: Newsquest) Those moving in to Edward Henry Street include families who had been in temporary accommodation, or on a waiting list for housing, for between four and six years.

Funded by Welsh Government and ClwydAlyn, each also has its own room for office space at the front of the premises, while rent is estimated to cost about £150 per week.

ClwydAlyn “pushed back” Edward Henry Street to make it wider for pedestrians to use, meanwhile.

The houses are available on both social and intermediate rents, while there are no ground-floor bedrooms, to further enhance tenants’ protection against potential flooding.

ClwydAlyn's new houses on Edward Henry Street, Rhyl (Image: Newsquest) Of the 13 new three-storey homes, five fall into Rhyl’s “conservation area”, so look the same as the flats whose place they have taken, in order to preserve the area’s heritage.

Those within the conservation area are yellow in colour, while the eight houses outside it are red, and have slightly different tiling.

This scheme is part of ClwydAlyn's development programme to deliver further 1,500 new homes in North Wales by 2025 at an investment of £250m, bringing the total number of homes in management to more than 7,500.