The city council today unveiled plans to start building properties for rent as early as next year as part of a £2.6 billion bid to ease the pressure on the city's deepening housing crisis.

What do you think to plans to build council houses for the first time in 30 years? Email us by clicking here. We'll publish the lot.

The decision marks Leeds's first commitment to social housing since before the Thatcher era.

Announcing plans today, the Tory-Lib Dem alliance said exact costs, the number of new properties and areas of the city where they are to be built were still subject to a consultation.

But Richard Brett, deputy council leader, said he hoped the new scheme would help provide 1,000 homes per year until 2020.

Housing schemes will be developed on council-owned brownfield sites in a bid to protect the environment.

Council leader Andrew Carter said: "We have been introducing more and more initiatives to provide low cost home ownership schemes, and more rented accommodation.

"It is perfectly obvious however, that particularly in certain areas, we need to provide rented accommodation more quickly.

"But we are not talking about a return to high rise blocks and the badly designed, huge estates of the 1960s and 70s. They will be smaller scale development for targeted groups in targeted areas.

"We want to get this moving as quickly as possible and by doing so are putting out a challenge to the Government to get off our backs.

"We are aware of the problems in Leeds, so let us get on with delivering homes that are affordable."

Coun Les Carter, executive member for neighbourhoods and housing, said: "On top of this initiative to build new council homes for rent, we have already initiated plans to build over 1,000 affordable homes a year through our strategic affordable housing partnership and are currently rolling out large regeneration schemes such as Easel and our new PFI schemes.

"In total we plan to invest in excess of £2.6bn on housing projects in Leeds."

Last month figures showed the number of new homes built in Leeds had sunk to a four-year low.

Only 2,685 were built in the local authority area in 2006/07; a 17 per cent drop from the previous year.

The number of people waiting for local authority housing grew from 23,851 in 2006 to 24,780 this year.

Coun Brett said: "It is one of the country's best kept secrets that there is a crisis in social housing. All parties, including my own, have been guilty of not talking about this problem because it mainly affects safe Labour seats and not areas that are likely to swing an election.

"We believe that national targets for building social houses for people to rent are far too small and we are aiming to significantly increase these targets for Leeds.

"This initiative ought to give hope to a huge number of people in Leeds who are not in satisfactory accommodation."

YOUR VIEWS:

Is this a good idea? The concept of council housing is a failed experiment, it has resulted in generations of residents who rely on virtually free housing and have no incentive to join the economically active population, that's why we have such a huge rich-poor gap and so many social problems which are mainly focused on council estates. Houses that are rented at a fair price or preferably affordable homes that are owned or part owned by residents are a much better solution as it requires the residents to 'buy in' to their local comunity and gives them incentive and pride to look after their area, rather than being given it on a plate with no incentive to participate in looking after their area.

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