NEW affordable homes in the Meon Valley have been named as among the best of their kind in Britain.

The 10-home project in West Meon, completed in November 2012, featured in Inside Housing magazine last month as one of the top 50 affordable developments in the UK.

Parish chiefs will visit Storey’s Meadow as part of a tour of five rural projects across the Winchester and East Hampshire districts on Friday June 6.

Twelve parishes are taking part: Durley, Owslebury, Droxford, Bishop’s Waltham, Kings Worthy, Bramdean & Hinton Ampner, Shedfield, Cheriton, Colden Common, Whiteley, Wickham and Hambledon.

The aim is to show how schemes can look and so encourage more villages to welcome them.

The £1.3m West Meon scheme was on a ‘rural exception’ site within the South Downs National Park.

It uses traditional materials to complement the surroundings and features a mixture of flats, houses and a bungalow all let at social rents.

Challenges during the development included the presence of a Saxon burial site at which a Bronze Age cremation urn was discovered and the need for a special dormouse bridge.

The tour is being organised by HARAH, the Hampshire Alliance for Rural Affordable Housing, and will also include visits to Houghton Gardens at Wickham in the Winchester district as well as schemes at West Tisted, Binsted and Bentley in East Hampshire.