Housing association plans to build 3,000 affordable Midlands homes
A housing association has unveiled plans to build more than 3,000 affordable homes across central England after it emerged house building has slumped to its lowest level in 24 years.
Bromford, which manages almost 2,500 homes across Shropshire, plans to build the homes over the next five years.
Bosses say the organisation will be looking to identify suitable sites in Shropshire as part of the scheme.
In its latest accounts, the housing association revealed ambitions to tackle the UK's housing crisis by building 3,132 homes across the West Midlands and central England by 2020/21.
In the last financial year Bromford started building 727 new homes – its highest level for four years – and its overall investment in new homes increased from £44m in 2014/15 to £50m in 2015/16.
Chris Holland, head of development at Bromford, said: "Shropshire is one of our key local authority partners within which we will be looking to identify suitable sites and schemes to invest in as part of our ongoing programme.
"We are currently exploring a number of opportunities but we have not got to the point of contracting on these yet."
Bromford's drive to build more new homes comes at a time when official figures show the number of affordable homes being built in England has dropped to its lowest level since 1991/92.
A total of 32,110 new affordable homes were built last year, which is less than half the 66,600 built the previous year.
Alex Dixon, Bromford's director of new homes, said: "The UK's housing shortage is unfortunately showing no signs of abating and that is why financially strong organisations like Bromford have a central role to play in maintaining and improving our efficiency to maximise the cash available to invest in new and existing homes and services.
"Our aim is to ultimately provide customers with homes they can be proud of, in desirable locations, which will create sustainable communities benefiting not just Bromford customers but wider society too."
The new homes started in 2015/16 included a mixture of affordable homes, shared ownership and supported housing.
Around 20 per cent of the completed homes were built by Bromford's in-house construction team.
Bromford manages 29,000 homes across central England.
The accounts for the housing association show a record surplus of £57m was recorded in 2015/16.
