Preston City Council considering buying eight city homes for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees

The city council is considering part-funding the purchase of properties to house Ukranian and Afghan refugees.

Eight homes in Preston could be bought and refurbished for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees – if an agreement can be struck between the city council and a social landlord.

As part of a government scheme designed to assist local authorities with the number of people they are accommodating in their area, Preston has been allocated a provisional £655,000 as a contribution towards the purchase and renovation of the properties.

However, that amount is expected to cover just 40 or 50 percent of the total price per dwelling – depending on its size – with the rest expected to come from local “match funding”.

That will require Preston City Council to do a deal with a registered social housing provider which would source the houses and stump up the required additional cash. After factoring in a £20,000 government contribution to the refurbishment costs of each property, a further £627,000 will be needed to deliver the programme in the city.

Under the Local Authority Housing Fund, councils had until 15th March to enter into a memorandum of understanding with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) if they wanted to take up the offer of the grant.

However, the Local Democracy Reporting Service understands that Preston has requested an extension to that deadline in order to continue to try to come to an arrangement with a local landlord – something which the DLUHC had indicated was an option if authorities were struggling to hit the target date.

Preston Markets lit blue and yellow for Ukraine

The cash allocation earmarked for the city is designed to enable it to fund the purchase of six two-bedroomed homes and two four-bedroomed dwellings by the end of November at the latest. The properties are intended for Ukrainian and Afghan families who have found sanctuary in the city after fleeing their unsafe homelands.

There are currently 82 people living in Preston under the nationwide Homes for Ukraine scheme, launched a year ago, which saw Brits offer refugees from the war-torn country a place to stay for at least six months. Meanwhile, 60 Afghan families have resettled in the city via two relocation and resettlement programmes in recent years.

The Local Authority Housing Fund grants – totalling £500m across the 182 local areas that have been offered them – are intended to provide settled accommodation for Ukrainians whose time with a sponsor family has come to an end and for 500 Afghan families currently living in hotels.

At a city council meeting last month during which members approved the principle of accepting the government funding, cabinet member for planning and regulation David Borrow said that he hoped the “important initiative” would have the same outcome as one in Leyland almost 25 years ago when a new estate was used to house those who had escaped Kosovo during the conflict in that country.

“Thirty-odd families ended up in those properties [and], two years later, they went back. It would be nice to think that if these [homes are acquired in Preston], the families who move into them would be able to move back to their home countries in a short period of time and [the houses] will be available for other families in due course,” said Cllr Borrow, who was the MP for South Ribble at the time of the Kosovo war in 1999.

The government guidance for the new grant scheme states that while it will help “to fulfil the UK’s humanitarian duties to assist those fleeing war, the fund will [also] create a lasting legacy for UK nationals by providing a new supply of accommodation for councils with which to address local housing and homelessness pressures”.

Last year, Cllr Borrow said that the Homes for Ukraine concept was not “a long-term solution” – and that Ukrainians arriving in the city would ultimately need homes of their own, not just space in other people’s houses.

Since the scheme launched in March 2022, the government has provided £1.1bn to councils in the form of a £10,500 payments to support each arrival in their area. That figure was reduced to £5,900 for refugees who arrived after the start of 2023.

Households participating in the programme by welcoming guests into their homes received “thank you payments” of £350 per month, which will increase to £500 per month if they continue to host a Ukrainian family for longer than a year.