Key worker rent 




Key workers in their thousands are taking advantage of government funding that makes it affordable to buy properties for the first time and to become home owners. The Key Worker Living programme will enable many key workers to take that important first step on to the property ladder or even to move up to a larger family home. Moat will assist key workers working in Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Essex and those working for the NHS in South East and South West London. This funding makes it possible to own a property on a key worker salary, even in expensive parts of the UK like London and the South East of England.

Our experience as a provider of key worker housing tells us that not all key workers are ready to take the long term commitment towards home ownership. Some younger nurses, teachers and others are newly qualified, newly recruited into the professions and only just starting out in their new roles. Individual personal priorities like paying off student loans and realising other aspirations after years of study, sometimes take precedent, shelving longer term commitments for later on in life.

Our partnership with key worker employers has helped us understand the frustrations of recruiting and, more importantly, retaining key worker employees. The work environment is forever competitive for good skills and high capabilities, where employers compete to recruit and retain those that are 'the best'.

We want to help employers to recruit and retain 'the best'. This initiative to provide accommodation at sub-market rents aims to do just that.
 
Our partnership with Kent County Council

Moat and Kent County Council (KCC) are working together and building flats for teachers on sites across Kent. The first of these, in the grounds of Tunbridge Wells High School, was completed in August 2003.
The flats are rented out at rates 20% below market levels, to newly qualified and newly recruited teachers, as part of KCC's recruitment activity.

The Tunbridge Wells scheme is the first in a number of similar initiatives around the county that will make it easier for teachers to come to, or stay, in Kent. Through these initiatives, teachers rent at more affordable levels, thereby preventing a 'brain drain' to other, less expensive, parts of England, or abroad.

A replicable model

The flats have been designed by the Cattell Skinner Design Partnership with a model that is replicable across other sites. In partnership with KCC, we are in discussion with head teachers from other schools in Kent where land is being provided to build accommodation for teachers, based on this model.

By its replication, and by provision of land in expensive parts of the south east, we can take advantage of economies of scale and sustain sub-market rents to the advantage of key workers and their key employers, teachers and KCC in this case.

R Durtnell & Sons Limited are the contractors, working in partnership with us to provide these affordable homes for teachers in Kent. Durtnells are providing additional opportunities for young local people to learn about the building and construction, providing skills to young people in these areas.

A sustainable way of living

The flats use a high degree of prefabrication and off-site manufacture, with a timber frame and high energy efficiency to keep fuel bills down. The design aims at speeding up construction times (approximately four months from start on site to completion).

Months of consultation with teachers means that design requests have been taken into account. For example, the flats in Tunbridge Wells include a workbench and study area so that homework assessments don't have to take up valuable living space.

And what happens afterwards?

Teachers will be allocated short term tenancies on these flats. At the end of their tenancies, they can decide whether to extend and remain in their flats, or choose to take that longer term commitment towards home ownership, with assistance from one of Moat's affordable home ownership schemes. 

At all times, we offer a first class customer service, support and information.

If you are a newly qualified or newly recruited teacher interested in these flats, speak to your head teacher or interviewer, to explore possibilities of being allocated one of them. Information is also available from Kent County Council's recruitment and retention team at www.kent-teach.com.

If you are an employer, public or private sector, interested in exploring the advantages that accommodation of this nature could provide, contact us. We'd be happy to show you round the flats for teachers. We'd be happy to talk to you.







Your home is at risk if you do not keep up rent and mortgage repayments or payments on other loans secured on it.

Please note the value of properties can go down as well as up.