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Nearly £50 million is to be spent building hundreds of new council homes in Leicester.

Officials at Leicester City Council have outlined plans to construct 300 new properties.

They say 210 of the homes would be available at an affordable rent.

The authority intends to sell the other 90 homes at an estimated profit of £18,000 per sale, to help fund the scheme.

There are currently 6,100 people on the waiting list for a council home in the city.

(Image: PA)

The Labour-run authority has set up its own housing company – Housing Leicester Ltd – which will build the new homes.

LeicestershireLive has already reported on the first phase of the company’s work to deliver 50 homes at a cost of £6.1 million.

It intends to start building early next year but now a second larger phase of works has been unveiled.

The council is currently trying to identify sites for the second phase of building which will start in April next year through to 2020/21.

They will be on plots , such as disused depots, already in public ownership.

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said he would like the Government to scrap Right to Buy under which tenants can buy their council homes.

More than 800 council homes in Leicester have been sold since 2015 raising more than £30 million – 70 per cent of which is kept by the Government and 30 per cent returned to the council.

Sir Peter said: “We are looking to escalate the speed at which we build.

"I would like to go back to the time in the 1970s and 1980s when it was considered an important council duty to provide decent affordable homes and they would build 1,000 a year.

“Now that is no longer an option.

“It was Thatcher and Right to Buy that have contributed to the shortage of social housing we now have.

“I would like to see Right to Buy ended.”

The council will borrow £21 million to build the new homes along with £9 million of Right to Buy receipts.

It will use £7 million from reserves and expects to make £12 million from selling some of the homes.

The council has also revealed the sites where it will build the first 50 homes.

Locations of new council houses in Leicester View fullscreen

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