A FAMILY-OF-FIVE are one step closer to getting the keys to their new four-bedroom detached house.

Vanessa and Thomas Maloney have been guaranteed a home, one of 24 to be built on a derelict allotment site on Knella Road, WGC.

The home will be custom built to make it suitable for the couple’s 10-year-old son Thomas, who is disabled.

It will also mean sister Margaret, 13 and brother Michael, six, will each have their own room.

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the start of work at the site on Friday, mum Vanessa was excited about the prospect of a new home and said it would be completely different to their current static caravan in Hatfield.

The development, which also contains eight two-bedroom flats, nine three-bedroom houses and six two-bedroom homes, is expected to be completed in October.

It is funded by a grant of almost �1m from the Homes and Communities Agency and the entire scheme is for families and couples on the council’s housing needs register.

Welwyn Hatfield MP Grant Shapps, who is also shadow housing minister, said: “The council did have the opportunity to sell the land for private housing, so I’m delighted they didn’t.

“It is also good to see houses and not flats, as we really do need family housing with gardens.”

Welwyn Hatfield Council is working in partnership with Affinity Sutton, Willmott Dixon and GHM Group.

Affinity Sutton has pledged �75,000 to improve Herns Wood, a wooded area adjacent to the site.