Plans for new homes in Brentwood are on hold because no-one bid for the contract.

Brentwood Council is planning to build more than 300 new council properties over the next seven years as part of its housing delivery plan.

The first 62 of these homes will be built as part of a proposal to redevelop empty and derelict homes, council owned garages and some older homes currently occupied in Brookfield Close, Hutton. Alongside this are plans for Pilgrims Hatch.

The Harewood regeneration scheme will result in 29 of the council’s poorest quality and currently rented homes, mostly of a post-war ‘pre-fabricated’ construction with timber and felt roofs, being replaced with 40 new energy efficient homes in Harewood Road, Carisbrook Road and Iver Road.

The main contract tenders through Crown Commercial Services (CCS) Framework closed on September 29.

However no bids were received for either scheme. The council is now working to understand how it can develop a new tender exercise.

Councillor David Kendall, chair of the finance, assets, investments and recovery committee, told a meeting of the committee on February 8 that the standard of build expected is putting some developers off.

He said: “The spec that we have on both developments – we are asking so much carbon neutral bits and pieces to be put in there – that is part of the reason why.

“There are certain people who will come forward to bid and others won’t. They are very high spec which is what we all agreed at housing committee and that is what the procurement is.”