Council considering further borrowing to buy additional homes for refugees

Aerial photo of the city centre of Leicester
-Credit: (Image: Getty)


Leicester City Council looks set to sign off on millions more pounds of borrowing to secure additional homes for refugees. The news comes just months after the council approved around £4.7 million in loans for 35 homes under the Government’s Local Authority Housing Fund scheme.

Central Government also contributed to the cost of the homes by way of around £3.87 million in grant money. Those grants were aimed at ensuring people who arrived through the “humanitarian schemes” introduced by the Government for those fleeing Ukraine and Afghanistan are provided with “sufficient longer-term accommodation”. They were also intended to ease the wider pressures on council housing services which were increased by the need to find homes for the new arrivals.

This latest round of buying would see an additional 24 homes purchased by the council, with the Government putting up £2.76 million and the local authority providing the remaining £3.27 million. These homes would be again be for Afghan refugees, but could also be used for homeless families in the city, Leicester City Council documents suggest.

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The aim of this new funding is to “reduce local housing pressure and use of expensive and unsuitable accommodation, by providing better quality temporary accommodation to those owed homelessness duties”, the documents add. It also seeks to “provide sustained settled housing to those on [the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme] so that they can build new lives in the UK, find employment and integrate into communities”.

Deputy city mayor for housing and neighbourhoods Elly Cutkelvin is expected to sign off on the loan next week. She approved an original £3.7 million loan under the earlier round of the scheme in March, expected to buy 27 homes, followed by a £1 million top up in April for the additional eight. Council officers have recommended this round of borrowing again be approved.