CONCERNS have been raised that a £32 million council development includes no social housing.

Independent councillor Stephen Bartlett criticised the lack of any provision in the BCP Council Princess Road scheme at Friday’s cabinet meeting

But the cabinet warned that there would be a £5.1 million funding gap if social housing was included and gave their backing to progressing plans already drawn-up.

The scheme would involve the council borrowing £18 million to fund the construction of 121 flats across four blocks – the tallest being 10 storeys high – and a 20-bed family hostel.

Originally plans to build homes for dozens of people with complex needs were being considered for the site.

Under the current plans, 65 of the flats would be provided on an ‘affordable’ basis, 22 under shared ownership rules and 34 rented on the private market through the council-owned Seascape Homes.

However, Cllr Bartlett hit out at the lack of any social housing with none having been built in Bournemouth for “at least the last six years”.

“While I welcome the building of any new homes – it’s desperately needed – I’m very disappointed that their tenures exclude any social rented housing,” he said at Friday’s cabinet meeting.

“There are about 4,600 people on the housing register in Bournemouth and I’m wondering how many of them would be able to afford the ‘affordable’ rents which in reality aren’t affordable.

“Bournemouth council spent in the region of about £50 million over the last few years buying homes for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so.

“The problem is that many of these people will be in that situation because they can’t afford private rents.

“These people are extremely vulnerable and they need housing that they can afford, otherwise we will be going round in this circle forever.”

Cabinet member for housing, Cllr Kieron Wilson, said he appreciated the concerns but said they had looked at including social housing and ruled it out because there would have been a £5.1 million funding gap.

“Building more social housing is something I think we should be doing more of going forward,” he said.

“There is none in this scheme but it is 72 per cent affordable which is well above our target.”

Cllr David Brown, cabinet member for finance, said including social housing would make the development “unviable”.

Councillors unanimously agreed to recommend that the scheme be approved when it considered at Tuesday’s council meeting.

Should this happen, the council said it expects a planning application for the development to be submitted in the following months.