Council to use new HRA borrowing powers to build 1,000 homes

The council has also earmarked a number of smaller sites the council hopes to directly deliver and fund through the HRA.

While it is currently estimated that building 1,000 new homes will cost around £180m over the 10-year period, the amount that the local authority will have to directly fund through borrowing will depend on how much it can raise through government grant and cross subsidy from mixed-tenure developments.

The HRA borrowing cap, which limited how much money councils were able to borrow to build new homes, was lifted in England and Wales at the end of 2018 by then-prime minister Theresa May.

Swansea Council follows a list of other local authorities aiming to borrow more cash through the HRA following the new rules. Earlier this month Stoke-on-Trent Council revealed it is set to use new borrowing powers to pump an extra £125m to build acquire 1,000 new council homes over the next six years.

Barnet, Bristol, Darlington, Ealing and Leeds councils are among other local authorities that have ramped up their development ambitions as a result of the cap being lifted.

This will contribute to Swansea Council’s overall strategy to deliver 5,000 affordable homes over the next decade, of which 4,000 will be delivered by registered social landlords.

The Welsh government has pledged to build 20,000 affordable homes during the assembly term running from 2016 until 2021.