Council spends £2m on temporary accommodation

A council has spent around £2m on buying seven homes for temporary accommodation with four more to be expected.

Arun District Council in West Sussex purchased the homes in Old Barn Gardens in Yapton.

The purchases are to help house homeless people and families who are part of the Afghanistan resettlement scheme in Arun.

Three of the homes will be used as temporary accommodation and four for the resettlement scheme.

There are three three-bed homes and four two-bed homes.

The council was granted £1.092m for the scheme last year through The Local Authority Housing Fund (LAHF) by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

The council borrowed the remaining £972,000.

A report on the scheme was discussed at the council’s housing and wellbeing committee on 18 June. Council officers said the homes were bought in March, and the new tenants had moved in.

Grant conditions meant the council had to purchase and have tenants in the new homes by 27 March or lose the funding, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported.

According to officers, the council has received some more money from DLUHC for four extra homes through the scheme, due to LAHF grants to other local authorities not being completely spent.

They said three of the extra homes would be for temporary accommodation and one for the resettlement scheme, and are expected to be purchased next month.

According to the committee report, the council expects to make a profit on the scheme of around £14,000, including the cost of borrowing payment of £62,000, in the first year.

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