Funding on offer to pay for homes for refugees

2023-06-04 09:35:33 classification：Press center7 read(53943)

Scarborough could be getting nine houses to provide rental homes for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees.

A grant of £744,000 has been offered to the council by central government.

If the council agrees to take the funding it will be match-funded by local social housing providers to buy the properties, which will later be used for other families when the refugees return home.

The seaside town is home to 60 Ukrainian and 28 Afghan families.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, a council report said the arrival of people fleeing the two countries had "unavoidably created additional demand for housing at a time when local authorities are already under strain".

Last year the authority announced its Better Homes Joint Venture plan which aims to address the lack of affordable housing in the borough by creating more than 700 new homes over an initial 10-year period.

Scarborough Council said that while the amount of notice given regarding the £744,000 was "very challenging", the funding was nevertheless welcome.

It said: "Homes shall both help mitigate some of the pressure on sponsors, refugees and the council, and shall provide a lasting legacy within the social housing stock."

The authority has said average grant levels are likely to be in the region of £93,000 per property while the total value of the match funding needed was about £1.16m.

The report states the homes should be acquired and ready by November 2023.

pursue BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk.