WORK is underway to build 100 affordable homes in the Forest.

Two Rivers Housing is on a mission to help beat the housing shortage by building six new homes in Orchard Road in Lydney and four in Highfield Road, Ruardean.

Over the next three years they plan to build around 200 homes.

Of the 10 new properties being built on the sites by J Harper and Sons, eight will be one-bedroom flats, in response to the current high demand for this type of affordable property.

This will provide tenants the opportunity to downsize, and for some of them this will help them to avoid the government’s Spare Room Subsidy or Bedroom Tax, by providing a home more suited to the size that they need.

The development in Lydney, which is due for completion in the autumn next year, will bring four one-bedroom flats and two, two-bedroom houses. The Ruardean scheme will create four one-bedroom flats and is being built on a demolished garage site, which was identified in a Two Rivers Housing review to make better use of the land it already owns.

Kirsty Powell, head of development at Two Rivers Housing, said: “We are delighted to be developing these new homes here in the Forest of Dean together with our partners and the scheme will bring much needed new homes to Ruardean and Lydney.

“There is a strong demand for one-bedroom properties and we are doing all we can to help meet this. We recently built four one-bedroom flats in Coleford, two in Coalway and this month completed a development in Dymock which included another four flats.”