JohnBuilding and buying is proving a winning combination when it comes to delivering high-quality affordable homes for council tenants in Leeds. Leeds City Council has built an impressive total of more than 400 homes over the last five years through its Council Housing Growth Programme (CHGP).
But those properties are only one part of the CHGP success story, with a further 479 homes – including some new-builds – being acquired during the same period from private owners and developers for use as council housing. And the council has now picked up the keys for the latest of these CHGP acquisitions, six properties on Manston Lane in Cross Gates.
Newly built by Yorkshire-based developer Strata, the three-bedroom family homes are being made available for affordable rent to people on the council’s housing register.
They are located at Desire, a wider Strata development where another eight new – or ‘off-the-shelf’ – properties were purchased through the CHGP earlier this year and are now occupied by council tenants.
The 479 homes acquired during the five-year first phase of the CHGP are spread across 32 wards of the city and have all been made available for either affordable or social rent to people on the council’s housing register.
In a key milestone, it is anticipated that the number of acquisitions completed via the CHGP will reach 500 by the end of this year. The vast majority of the funding for CHGP activity to date has come from the council’s housing service via Right to Buy receipts and borrowing.
The use of the same funding mechanism was recently approved for phase two of the programme, which will run from 2026 to 2031 and – as with phase one – will see some homes being built by the council and others acquired from private owners and developers.
Councillor Jess Lennox, Leeds City Council’s executive member for housing, said: “I’m proud of the difference that our Council Housing Growth Programme is making to lives and communities across Leeds.
“The building activity and acquisitions work undertaken by the programme has delivered hundreds of homes that are not only high quality but affordable as well. “
I was really pleased to have the opportunity earlier this week to visit the Manston Lane development, with our latest acquisitions there leaving me hugely impressed. These spacious, warm and welcoming homes have been built to exacting standards and will be great places for local families to live.”
New-build CHGP projects recently completed by the council include Brooklands Avenue in Seacroft, where 25 one-bedroom apartments and eight two and three-bedroom houses now have pride of place on a transformed brownfield site.
Work is also continuing on a new-build CHGP development in the Ambertons area of Gipton that has already delivered 16 homes, with another 39 still to come.
The term ‘affordable housing’ refers to homes that are available for rent at below market value or low-cost ownership. When affordable housing is made available for rent, potential tenures include ‘affordable’ and ‘social’. Affordable rent is discounted by at least 20 per cent from the prevailing local market rate. Social rent is lower than affordable rent and set by a formula tied to local incomes, property size and property value.
