Plea for £208m to build council homes in Cambridge

Cambridge councillors want to ask for £208million to build more council homes.

The city council said the extra government cash would enable it to "accelerate" the construction of over 1,100 new and re-provided affordable homes, and over 1,100 market homes.

A 10-year new homes programme was agreed by the city council in 2020, setting out the aim to build 1,000 council homes and 1,000 market homes by 2030.

To date, the papers said there are 516 council homes in the works, with 259 handed over onsite, and 257 submitted for planning approval, meaning a net increase of 437.

Gerri Bird, executive councillor for housing:

"Our vision for Cambridge is a place where everyone has a warm, safe, and affordable home, and we are doing everything we can to make that vision a reality. We are making good progress.

"We built the second highest number of council homes in the country last year, as well as some market homes which are also desperately needed in the city.

"The sale of these market homes goes some way to helping us with the affordability of building new council homes, but it is getting increasingly difficult.

"We’re looking ahead to how we can deliver more new, high quality council homes through our 10-year house-building programme, while costs continue to increase and funding continues to decrease."

Councillors will be invited to debate the plans at the scrutiny meeting next week.