Crisis looming as council can only build 16 houses instead of 128 after Osborne's rent reduction
Plans to build more than 100 new council homes in Cannock Chase have been scrapped, leaving people on the waiting list in a 'crisis' according to authority bosses.
The district council's 30-year house-building strategy has been impacted after the Government announced it was reducing council rents by one per cent from April when the authority actually wanted to raise them.
Tony McGovern, managing director of Cannock Chase District Council said the cumulative difference over the 30-year plan was a loss in the region of £78million.
As a result the council can only afford to build 16 new homes when they had intended to build around 128.
He said: "There are over a 1,000 people on the waiting list and for those people it is a crisis.
"Effectively this has stopped our new house-building programme.
"We had a plan and we are now unable to deliver it.
"We wanted to build over 100 but we can only build 16 now. It is all we are able to afford.
"Baring in mind we planned to increase rents by one or two per cent and now they are going to decrease by one per cent.
"The difference over the 30 year plan period is something like £78million.
"It is a huge issue for us."
Chancellor George Osborne announced the rent reduction last year and the change will come into effect from April.
The move is aimed at reducing the housing benefit budget.
Housing officers on the council subsequently spent months investigating what the ramifications would be for Cannock.
Mr McGovern added: "It is really disappointing. The Government announced this without any consultation.
"You can see what they are trying to do.
"They want to reduce the housing benefit budget. A lot of people get their rents paid through the benefit system."
Housing officer Nirmal Samrai said that the rent reduction would also push back the council's windows refurbishment programme which would now take ten years to complete rather than seven.
She added: "We can't meet the local housing need in terms of people waiting to be rehomed here.
"People can't afford to buy and not everyone has the aspiration to buy.
"We are also going to be left with sites which aren't going to be developed.
"We had identified a number of garage sites that were derelict and had become an eyesore.
"We wanted to improve and regenerate those sites."
