Lib Dems set to approve £24m plan to buy homes and boost housing supply for local families stuck on the waiting list

Wokingham Borough Council's Lib Dem administration is bringing forward a plan to buy up to 70 existing homes and help deliver around 95 additional homes through the council's own housing company, aimed at the residents with the most urgent housing need.

The Council Housing Acquisition and Investment Programme comes before the Executive this Thursday 24 September. If approved, it would let the council buy homes on the open market and invest up to £5.5 million through its Local Housing Company to help deliver additional affordable homes.

This matters most for people in the highest-priority category on the Housing Register - which includes those fleeing domestic abuse and with urgent medical needs. There are 32 households in this band, including families needing one, two and three-bedroom homes, and people needing homes adapted for a disability. Right now, 1,319 households are on the wider register, and 82 households are living in temporary accommodation while they wait.

The council says the numbers add up, as well as being the right thing to do. Rather than a spending commitment, it's designed as a rolling investment: each individual purchase must pass its own business case, showing it will earn at least a 5% return and pay for itself over 40 years. Officers estimate the homes bought could bring in £218,000–£476,000 a year in rent, while cutting the council's reliance on costly temporary and specialist accommodation – currently costing the council upwards of £3.2 million a year.

Cllr Prue Bray, Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Children’s Services, said:

"Families with three or four children often can't get out of temporary accommodation because there simply aren't enough larger properties for them to move into. This programme lets us fix that by buying the right homes to meet their needs."

Cllr Stephen Conway, Council Leader and Executive Councillor for Housing, said:

"Like many parts of the South East, market price housing in Wokingham is out of reach for many people. We're tackling this from multiple directions - requiring developers to build more affordable homes, building more council housing, and now by being able to buy existing properties to get people into secure homes faster."