Plan for another 20,000 social homes

Details of Gordon Brown’s plan to boost social housing were revealed in the House of Commons yesterday. He announced he would pump £2.1 billion into building affordable housing, including an extra 20,000 homes to be built in the next two years on top of the 90,000 already in the pipeline. He said he would triple the £600 million announced in the Budget to cover new council and housing association homes – with half the extra £1.5 billion coming from the Communities and Local Government budget and the other half redirected from other government departments including transport, health and schools.