SIX former police houses to the rear of Churchill Retirement Living’s Hawthorn Lodge development in Longbridge are finally ready to home tenants from Waverley’s social housing register.

The police station in Longbridge was demolished in late 2014 to make way for Churchill’s block of 50 retirement flats, while six three-bedroom houses to the rear of the building site were acquired by Waverley Borough Council to add to its social housing stock.

The houses were built in the 1960s to provide homes for police officers based at the police station and their families, and following refurbishment are now expected to be occupied by mid-March.

Waverley has faced criticism for the amount of time it has taken to bring the empty homes up to an acceptable standard - with around 1,700 applicants on its housing register and only around 300 council homes becoming available each year.

But explaining the delay, Waverley’s housing development manager Louisa Blundell said the refurbishment works could only proceed once Churchill development had “progressed sufficiently to provide safe access to the rear of the properties”.

Hawthorn Lodge welcomed its first tenants early last year, while Waverley’s tendering process for the refurbishment works to the six police houses closed on February 23, 2016.

Ms Blundell added the homes will be advertised and allocated to those on Waverley’s housing register, and are “expected to be handed over and occupied in the next month”.