Milton Keynes Council are making progress on buying up homes across Milton Keynes in order to provide secure council housing at affordable rents to homeless families and those with high housing needs.
This year 24 properties, comprising a mixture of three and four bedroom homes and one two bedroom home have been purchased. This will cost Milton Keynes Council £4.3 million.
Cllr Nigel Long, Cabinet Member for Housing, said: “As we continue to develop our new build housing programme we have also sought to buy houses across Milton Keynes. We have bought homes from Stony Stratford to Bradville to Bletchley. The average price for the 24 properties is £179,000. Good value!”
“However, buying new Council houses on the open market is not the best solution because whilst it helps us meet housing need and take homeless families out of temporary accommodation it will not increase the supply of housing. That is why we are building an in-house ‘Asset Management team’ to oversee the building of hundreds of new Council houses.”
Milton Keynes Council are planning to build 48 new council houses this year, 87 next year, 155 in 2020/21 and 230 in 2021/22.
Cllr Long added: "Our aim is to build a significant number of new Council houses to increase the overall supply of truly affordable housing locally. So whilst investing £4.3 million in buying up houses this year is good value for money, our longer term new build programme will end the need to buy houses on the open market."
