Planning permission has been granted for the 15-home OX Place housing development in Oxford.

Oxford City Council's housing company plans to build a single L-shaped block on Westlands Drive.

The new homes will be a mixture of townhouses, flats and maisonettes ranging from one to four bedrooms.

Built in brick, the three-storey block will match the scale of existing buildings on Westlands Drive. One home will be designed to be fully accessible to a person living with a wheelchair, while all flats will be accessible via lift.

Westlands Drive is designed to be a low-car development, with two wheelchair-accessible parking spaces and a third space for visiting carers. There will be communal storage for 28 bikes for people living in flats, and all houses will have their own bike spaces.

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Eleven of the new homes will be council homes, with six let at social rent and five let at affordable rent. The remaining four homes will be sold for shared ownership.

The development will include a number of environmentally friendly features. These include, source heat pumps for heating and hot water, a mechanical extract ventilation system to extract moist stale air and enhanced insulation.

Commenting on the project, Councillor Linda Smith, cabinet member for housing, said: "Oxford needs affordable homes and we know that each one makes a life-changing difference. Westlands Drive will deliver 11 council homes and four shared ownership homes, all built to OX Place’s high standards and significantly exceeding our low carbon requirements."

Speaking on the timeline for the development, Helen Horne, managing director at OX Place, said: "We're really pleased to get planning permission for 15 affordable and much-needed homes in Westlands Drive. We'll now start preparations for the development and hope to start work onsite in July next year."