Council to spend £250m on improving housing

Swindon Borough Council has set out a plan to improve standards in the homes it manages

A council is set to spend £250m on improving its housing - despite just 1% of that being needed to bring its homes up to standard.

Swindon Borough Council has set out its intention to spend the sum over the next five years in order to meet the government's Decent Homes Standard across 10,000 bedsits, houses and flats.

But the same strategy document that said £250m was needed for wide ranging improvements also said that "over £2.56m" was required to repair all failing homes.

Cabinet member for housing Janine Howarth said that bringing homes up to government standards was the "minimum" tenants should expect.

"We want tenants in our 10,383 homes, 31 sheltered housing schemes and four supported housing schemes to live in high-quality housing," she said.

"That is why we are planning to invest £250m over the next five years in the maintenance and refurbishment of our stock."

At a cabinet meeting she also explained that the funding would come "at no cost to services funded through council tax", and would instead be funded by rents paid to the council by tenants.

Meanwhile, a possible first step towards hundreds of homes being built on a Swindon park has been set out, with housing social enterprise Places for People asking council planners if it would need to provide an environmental impact assessment for a prospective project.

Marlborough Park has been the site of a number of planning applications

While a formal proposal has not yet been submitted, the query was an indication that the company was considering putting in a planning application for 300 houses on Marlborough Park.

An earlier application in 2015  allowed up to 313 houses as well at 91 other flats or houses and 74 age-restricted housing units on the site and land to the north.

Places for People already has planning permission to build 80 affordable homes  – which is defined as available for rent at 80% of the market rate –  to the north east of Marlborough Park, on a plot of land between Lowry way and Broome Manor Lane.

As well as the proposal for 313 houses on the site approved in outline in 2015, a scheme for more than 600 houses was approved in 2005, but has lapsed.