More than £500,000 will be spent on bringing empty houses across Bolton back into use for temporary and social housing use.

This comes after questions were put at Bolton Town Hall about the possibility of the borough building its own council housing again.

The council currently has no housing of its own, with the independent organisation Bolton at Home instead acting as the borough’s main social housing provider.

Cllr David Grant, of Horwich South and Blackrod, said: “Over the years, Bolton at Home has gradually distanced itself from council oversight, with only one councillor now on its board.

“They are also set to drop the Bolton name due to an upcoming merger.

A boarded up house on new laneA boarded up house on new lane (Image: Public)

“Many residents still mistakenly believe that the council is responsible for the security of social housing, not realising that we relinquished that responsibility in 2011.

“Given that several local authorities, such as Bury with Six Town Housing, are now bringing social housing back in-house.

“Due to the nature of our deal with Bolton at Home this claw back isn’t possible, but with the responsibility for housing those who are homeless still with the council is now not the time to start building up our own housing stock.

“If not least to remove the financial burden of hiring rooms in hotels and hostels and more perversely letting homes from Bolton at Homes housing stock which exacerbates the housing shortage for those waiting on the housing register.”

Bolton at Home manages more than 18,000 properties around the borough and is soon set to rebrand as Be One Homes after a merger with Trafford Park based Arcon Housing.

But Cllr Grant told a full meeting of Bolton Council that the authority should instead look at rebuilding its own social housing stock.

He said this was especially the case given recent cases of land being sold to developers at low prices.

In response, council leader Cllr Nick Peel said that the authority had received investments of around £1.2m for its housing services.

He said this would include around £580,000 which would be spend on bringing empty properties back into use for social and temporary housing.

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Cllr Peel said: “The work will begin immediately with hopefully the first of those homes brought back into use by the new year.”

He added: “By building up our portfolio in this way this saves significant cash from hotels and other temporary accommodation.”

Cllr Peel said bringing providers like Bolton at Home back into council ownership would be “financially prohibitive.”

But he said better control of social housing could be achieved through new legislation.