Liverpool to build first council houses in 30 years

Granby, Liverpool.

Liverpool City Council will build new council houses for the first time in 30 years after the government said it does not need to repay the housing debt of £735m from the transfer of previous stock to housing associations in the late 2000s.

The announcement marks a return to house building for the local authority, who built the first council houses in Europe in 1869 to tackle issues with sanitation and poor health.

The first properties will be a small number of homes that have been refurbished on Webster Road in Picton

The council say there are developing plans for an initial phase of houses, which will contribute to the city’s goal of 30,000 new homes by 2030.

Councils have been freed up to borrow more to build homes since April after the government removed a cap on borrowing limits for housing.

In a letter to Mayor Joe Anderson, the Minister of State for Housing, Kit Malthouse, said he is ‘pleased to see the ambition and enthusiasm of a city such as Liverpool, in engaging with the urgent process of delivering the new homes that this country needs.’

Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson said: ‘Liverpool pioneered public sector housing and my formative years were spent growing up in a council tenement, so I am extremely proud that, 150 years on from the city leading the way on social properties, we are now able to do so again.’

Earlier this month, the authority launched their ‘ethical’ housing company, Foundations, which will deliver £1bn worth of development over the next decade through rent-to-buy schemes.

The scheme enables people to pay a reduced rent on Foundations properties so they can save enough money for a deposit to buy the home.

Last year NewStart visited the former council houses in Granby that now make up the community land trust Granby 4 Streets. Read the story below.

How the Granby 4 Streets CLT put one part of Liverpool back on the map