Brighton and Hove council to take on affordable homes rejected by housing associations

Affordable homes in new developments which housing associations don't want to buy and manage may instead be bought up by Brighton and Hove City Council.

In the last year, a number of plans for small numbers of affordable homes in new developments fell through because none of the five housing associations the council works with wanted to take them on.

In cases such as the Davigdor Road Artisan project, there were not enough affordable homes on offer for the authority’s preferred housing associations who don’t want the risk of managing small numbers of properties.

Instead the council was offered money to buy up other properties – £670,000 in the case of the Artisan project.

It’s now proposed to extend the city council’s pilot project to buy back former council homes to allow the purchase and management of new affordable homes too.

A report to next week’s Housing and New Homes Committee (September 19) updating councillors on the pilot says that so far £428,500 has been spent on a flat and house.

A further three former council homes are under offer for a combined £681,200. Another two have offers in the pipeline.