Council to ask government for over £208m to build more council homes in Cambridge

Exterior of the five-storey Guildhall in Cambridge.

Plans have been unveiled to ask the government for over £208million to build more council homes in Cambridge. Cambridge City Council said it needs more financial support to continue building new homes in the city. Alongside the request for more funding, the authority is also proposing a change in its approach to home building in light of the “current economic climate”.

Papers published ahead of the Housing Scrutiny Committee meeting next week (September 17) set out the latest plans to ask the government for a £208.5million grant. The city council said this would enable it to “accelerate a pipeline” 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. The report said this was a net increase in council homes of 437.

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The authority said through its partnership with the developers Hill it had delivered the “second largest number of direct council homes in England” last year. However, the report said changes are needed to continue building council homes in the city. It said: “In the current economic climate of continued high interest rates and increased build costs, the council alone is unable to finance this level of housing development in a financially sustainable way.”

The city council said this is why it is looking to agree a revised approach including a “greater flexibility over the mix of homes”. The report said there would be a “mixed tenure approach to development” in order to reduce the “financial exposure” of the council to cost risks of 100 per cent affordable sites.

The city council said it will set a target of at least 50 per cent of the housing being affordable across the programme and said the current programme “suggests 53 per cent affordable housing can be achieved”. Alongside the changes in approach the city council said the funding request to government would also help support the “ambitious” plans. Councillors will be invited to debate the plans at the scrutiny meeting next week.

Councillor Gerri Bird, executive councillor for housing, said: “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.

“Just this week we joined 100 other councils across the country in calling on government to help us help them achieve their ambition for a new generation of council homes. We want to continue to play a leading part in achieving this ambition, and the proposed new portfolio approach would really help give us the flexibility we need, while also reducing the financial risk to the council of investing in essential house building.”