Kirknewton’s Seven Eco Homes Finish as Private Estates Advance

Scotland’s Rural and Islands Housing Fund now lists the seven Camps Junction homes as complete. Kirknewton Community Development Trust’s near-Passivhaus rental stock, built for local people, is on the official ledger as at 20 March 2026.

The same village has since backed 48 private homes in principle and given permission for 43 more. The Trust’s project locks a small, cheap-to-run rental row. It does not set how Kirknewton grows.

Complete on a List of 394 Rural Homes

The fund’s approvals table names Kirknewton Community Development Trust, Camps Junction, West Lothian, seven homes, status Complete. Across Scotland the same sheet totals 394 homes, mixing finished jobs, sites still on the ground, and approvals that have not started.

CAMPS JUNCTION AT A GLANCE

• Homes: Seven community rentals at Camps Junction, also called Jencks View.
• Status: Complete on the Rural and Islands Housing Fund list as at 20 March 2026.
• Build contract: £1.696 million with Colorado Construction.
• All-in budget: Nearly £1.95 million, about £279,000 a home.

Complete on that list means the funded homes have been delivered for the programme’s purposes. It does not, by itself, name tenants, rents, or move-in dates. The Trust still has not published those.

The homes sit at the east end of Kirknewton, between the old main road to the Camps level crossing, the Jencks Stones landscape artwork, the railway, and Main Street. The Trust describes a community of some 2,600 people in the village and the outlying south-east of West Lothian, about 10 miles west of Edinburgh.

Colorado Construction Took the Job From Livingston

The Trust signed the seven-home building contract with Colorado Construction Ltd in 2023. Architectural design and management sat with Robertson Architecture & Design in Livingston. Harley Haddow handled civil, structural, and mechanical and electrical utility design.

A June 2023 announcement put the all-in project cost at nearly £1.95 million and set site possession for around 3 July, with a 43-week programme. By January 2024 the Trust was still pointing to around 3 July for possession, with the same 43-week span. Horizon Housing Association, part of the Link Group, was named as manager.

Ian Bownes, managing director of Colorado Construction, said the firm was based in Livingston and looked forward to delivering the job “for our near neighbours in Kirknewton.” Bryan Laird, principal civil engineer at Harley Haddow, said the practice was supplying civil, structural, and mechanical and electrical utility infrastructure design “for the development approvals of these residential properties.”

The homes were specified to near Passivhaus standard, with Horizon’s help, and were described as developed by and for the community. Occupation was reserved for people from within Kirknewton.

Eleven Years From a Land Grant to Seven Keys

The build was the last step in a much longer land fight. The Trust was formed in 2007 after a Court of Session case against an illegal landfill run by Tarmac, with the City of Edinburgh Council also named, and won an award of over £250,000.

HOW THE SEVEN HOMES GOT BUILT

1. 2007: Kirknewton Community Development Trust is founded after a Court of Session win of over £250,000 against an adjacent illegal landfill.
2. September 2015: The Scottish Land Fund awards the Trust £60,000 to buy 0.31 hectares at Camps Junction, the first such social housing award in West Lothian, for low-energy homes that older local people can rent.
3. June 2023: The Trust contracts Colorado Construction for £1.696 million, with an all-in cost of nearly £1.95 million and a 43-week programme after site possession around 3 July.
4. January 2024: A further contract update still sets possession for around 3 July and confirms Horizon as manager, with Ecology Building Society providing development finance and a long-term mortgage.
5. 21 November 2024 to 31 December 2024: Planned works covered by a later overrun grant take in electrical and mechanical engineering and the supply of utilities.
6. 6 January 2025: Foundation Scotland, through the Coram Fund, awards a £47,484 grant for cost overruns to keep the seven accessible, energy-efficient homes on track for affordable rent.
7. 20 March 2026: The Rural and Islands Housing Fund list records Camps Junction as Complete.

Eleven years separate the land grant from that Complete line. The 2015 award was explicit about who the houses were for. An early day motion that September said older people in Kirknewton had been unable to reach amenities or social housing, and that each home was planned with annual energy bills lower than the winter fuel allowance then in force.

Horizon Lets the Homes, Ecology Holds the Loan

Ownership sits with the Trust. Day-to-day letting sits with Horizon. That split is the mechanism that is supposed to keep the homes both professionally managed and “affordable in perpetuity to local people,” the phrase Ecology Building Society used when it joined the deal.

Ecology said it was contributing development finance and long-term mortgage support to the Camps Project. The society’s public mortgages for community-led housing run on a case-by-case rate, on repayment terms from 1 to 30 years, and at up to 80% of value for housing associations and community land trusts.

The Trust’s commitment to delivering highly energy efficient, comfortable homes that will be affordable in perpetuity to local people is absolutely aligned to the values of the Society and our members.

Ecology Building Society, on the Camps Project

The long-term test is allocation, not the topping-out photo. If lets drift to whoever is easiest to house, the 2015 promise to older local renters thins out. If Horizon and the Trust hold the local connection, seven homes become a permanent slice of Kirknewton that the market cannot absorb.

Accessible Rooms Were Written Into the Brief

Horizon’s accessible housing ambassador, Scottish Paralympian Aileen Nelson, tied the scheme to a simple housing gap: rooms that are the right size and the right type.

Having been lucky enough to travel all over the world, we faced many challenges finding suitable accessible accommodation so it’s really important for accessible housing to be developed which is of the right size and right type to meet a range of needs.

Aileen Nelson, accessible housing ambassador, Horizon Housing Association

WHAT THE TRUST SAID THE HOMES MUST DO

• Local lets: Occupation is intended for people from within the Kirknewton community.
• Older renters: The 2015 land award and the Trust’s own grant filings frame Jencks View as rental housing for older villagers at the eastern approach to the village.
• Access: The brief supports accessible and inclusive living, with Horizon appointed as manager.
• Fabric: The houses are designed to near Passivhaus standard, not presented as certified Passivhaus.
• Bills: The 2015 land-fund case for the site promised genuinely sustainable houses with low annual energy costs.

Near Passivhaus is a performance target, thick insulation, airtightness, and careful services, not a plaque on the door. The Trust never published a certified Passivhaus identifier for Camps Junction in the materials around the contract or the later overrun grant.

Kirknewton Is Clearing 91 Private Houses Next

While the Trust was finishing seven rentals, the rest of Kirknewton’s planning diary filled with volume housebuilding. In April 2025, West Lothian Council’s Development Management Committee gave CC Drummond approval in principle for 48 homes on a five-acre site bounding Roosevelt Road and the railway. The site already had a 2021 development consent behind it. Objectors still lodged 24 submissions, including pressure on medical facilities. Planning agent Robin Matthew said the house types would include bungalows and single-aspect homes, with acoustic fencing left to detailed design.

In August 2026, Ogilvie Homes won permission for 43 homes on a site earmarked for housing, reached through Station Mews, which had ended at a five-bar gate to an open field. Neighbours cited flood risk, traffic, wildlife, and the load on East Calder Medical Practice. A council flood-risk officer told members a sustainable drainage scheme would add protection in heavy storms.

KIRKNEWTON HOUSING IN THE LEDGER

Forty-eight plus 43 is 91 private homes with planning backing, against seven community rentals the village owns. The two private schemes are not the same consent. One is still in principle. One has permission. Neither is a Trust asset, and neither is reserved for older local renters.

Public argument in Kirknewton has followed those larger numbers. The Trust’s seven homes did not draw a fight on the scale of the Roosevelt Road objections or the Station Mews flood and GP claims. Luxury sales on the Edinburgh edge have taken up more of the local housing noise than Jencks View ever did.

What Seven Community Homes Cost to Build

Colorado’s build contract was £1.696 million. The Trust said the project would have cost nearly £1.95 million by completion, about £279,000 a home once land, design, and fees sit on top of the build. Foundation Scotland’s £47,484 then covered electrical and mechanical engineering and utilities when those lines overran.

Sold prices listed for Kirknewton averaged £287,899 over the last year, with terraced homes at £172,000, semis at £305,333, and detached at £396,547. The community paid new-build money, at a capital cost close to that village average, to create rental stock it will still own after the mortgage is gone.

That is the wager Ecology underwrote. A near-Passivhaus shell is expensive to put up and cheap to heat if the detailing holds. The Rural and Islands Housing Fund is the public piece of the same wager. A Scottish Parliament answer on spend from April 2016 to the end of March 2025 put £30.233 million spent through the fund against a £50.450 million budget, split £14.358 million on the rural side and £15.876 million on the islands side. Ministers have also pointed to over 12,000 affordable homes in rural and island communities between April 2016 and March 2024 through the wider Affordable Housing Supply Programme, which includes this fund. The fund itself has been described as a £37 million pot extended to 2028.

Camps Junction is one completed line on that sheet. Kirknewton still has to let the houses on the terms the land grant described, keep Horizon’s allocations local, and service Ecology’s mortgage. The 91 private permissions will do more to change the village’s traffic and GP load. The seven homes will do more to decide whether an older renter can stay east of Main Street without buying at £287,899.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Rural and Islands Housing Fund?

It is a Scottish Government pot for organisations that want to provide social rent or low-cost home ownership in rural and island places, sitting beside the much larger Affordable Housing Supply Programme. The published approvals list ran to 394 homes as at 20 March 2026, and ministers have said the fund has been extended to 2028 with a £37 million envelope.

Who runs Kirknewton Community Development Trust?

It is a community company (SC307425) and charity (SC037895) formed in 2007 after the landfill case, with a public site at kirknewton.info. Grant filings say it has used its own capital to help secure further grants, including a zero-carbon community centre known as the Green Room, and that Jencks View was retained as a main item under community facilities and services.

What does near Passivhaus mean for these houses?

It means the design aimed at Passivhaus levels of insulation, airtightness, and comfort with Horizon’s input, without a published Passivhaus certificate in the contract or overrun papers. A useful comparison elsewhere in the same fund is Nith Valley LEAF Trust’s three certified community Passivhaus homes in Closeburn, completed in 2020, where heating was put at around £300 a year.

Where is Jencks View in Kirknewton?

Jencks View is the Trust’s name for the seven-home site at Camps Junction, on the eastern approach to the village, between the former Camps road, the Jencks Stones artwork, the railway line, and Main Street. Charles Jencks’s “A Stone’s Progress” is listed on Main Street, EH27 8BU, next to that edge of the village.

Did the Kirknewton eco homes go over budget?

The build contract stayed at £1.696 million; the Trust had already flagged an all-in cost of nearly £1.95 million before work wrapped. The extra £47,484 from Foundation Scotland in January 2025 was ring-fenced for electrical and mechanical engineering and utilities, which is how the seven homes were described as secured for affordable rent.