Help for familes struggling to buy homes

Aug 2 2007 By David Bell, Birmingham Mail

A £150 MILLION sale of surplus housing land is being used to speed up the supply of affordable homes to city families who can't afford to get on the property ladder.

Cabinet housing chief John Lines hopes the disposal of 200 acres to developers and housing associations over the next three years will finance 4,500 new homes.

Just under half of them will be classed as"affordable" - to be rented, for sale with a dis-count, or available for a low cost shared ownership scheme.

"We've increased the programme of providing new homes through land sales because of the increasing demand in Birmingham for affordable housing," Coun Lines said. "This is not enough but at least it's something.

"The demand for council homes is going up and up. We've currently around 30,000 people on our waiting list."

Ironically demand is surging as the council's housing stock sinks to its lowest ever level.

The city, which was once England's largest municipal landlord with more than 120,000 homes, has managed to cling on to the title even though its stock of homes will sink to 65,000 this year.

Right-to-buy sales and demolitions have been responsible for the fall.

"Because of the growing pressure from families wanting a roof over their heads, we now only demolish in cases where repairs cannot be carried out properly," Coun Lines said.

Coun Lines said building on any flood plains, green fields, or backfill developments would be sternly resisted by the city.

He added: "It is important that the Government supports rented homes as well as affordable housing for sale because a large number of households have no hope of buying even an 'affordable property', either now and in the future."