Sheffield set for hundreds more council homes

Hundreds of new council homes are planned for Sheffield

Hundreds more council homes will be made available to Sheffield residents over the next five years.

Sheffield City Council is building and acquiring more than 1,000 properties to tackle an "unprecedented demand" for affordable and social housing.

The local authority said it had set aside £255m for the acquisitions and new builds, in additional to £28m which had already been allocated.

It is also bidding for funding from the government.

According to the council, around 147 homes would be built on two sites at Newstead, next to Birley Moor Road, with 36 new apartments planned for Bole Hill View at Crookes.

An additional 275 homes would be built across the city and around 417 properties would be brought back into use as council stock.

'Good, affordable housing'

These would add to 137 new homes which have already been delivered.

Council leader Tom Hunt said the developments were necessary to meet the needs of a growing population.

He said: "Building new council homes and finding properties that can be purchased will help us to increase our council housing stock and enable more people to have good, affordable housing while relieving what is unprecedented levels of demand on our current stock.

"We will work with partners in the public and private sector to make this happen and there is a lot of work taking place to increase housing growth in our city."