'Innovative, alternative' housing plea to council

Councillors have been urged to look at "innovative" ways of providing new homes, such as through pods and using garage conversions.

A report to Telford and Wrekin Council said councillors could look at what other councils were doing, such as Bristol's Gap House project, which has created eco homes on former garage plots.

The £20m investment from the government Pride in Place scheme, matched by the council's £10m into south Telford, could be used for looking at options, it added.

The authority's business and finance scrutiny committee is set to discuss the report at its meeting on Wednesday.

The report to the committee also suggested councillors set up a working group whose tasks would include site visits and case study reviews.

It noted that Telford's growth since it was created as a new town in 1968 "did not progress as quickly as originally anticipated".

The borough was originally designated to accommodate about 250,000 residents, but the current population was just over 190,000, council officers said.

Meanwhile, the recent funding offered "an opportunity to consider whether or not any of the innovative alternative accommodation initiatives that have been explored in other parts of the country would be of benefit within Telford".

Among options were "smaller low-cost homes aimed at single-person households".

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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