Horsham-based housing association Saxon Weald has built the first development of super-energy efficient Passivhaus homes in the South East.

Thirty-eight households are about to move into new eco-homes in the centre of the historic market town of Horsham, paying around £160 per week for a three-bedroom house. They can look forward to annual fuel bills a tenth of those in standard homes.

Saxon Weald has built 12 houses to Passivhaus standard and five houses and 21 flats to Level 5 of the government’s Code for Sustainable Homes, using environmentally- friendly construction methods, on the site of a day centre and a care home near the town's railway station.

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The Passivhaus homes have triple glazing, and all the homes benefit from extra-thick insulation and money-saving photovoltaic cells, which harness the sun’s power and turn it into free electricity.

The homes were built using Innovare i-SIPS panels by the family-owned construction company Osborne at a cost of almost £4.8 million, including a grant of more than £3million from the government’s Homes and Communities Agency and £300,000 from Horsham District Council.

Saxon Weald's Chief Executive David Standfast said: "We're very proud to have built these fantastic new homes in Horsham. Building Passivhaus and Code Level 5 homes may cost more than conventional housing initially, but energy efficiency is key to keeping people out of fuel poverty in the years to come."

(CD/GK)