GAZETTE & HERALD: THIRTY-SIX affordable homes will be built in Corsham within the next two years.

North Wiltshire District Council agreed to allocate the remaining £797,674 needed to develop the site for all the homes at Pockeredge Farm.

Now it is hoped building work will begin later this year or in 2006.

District council executive member for housing, Judy Rooke said: "It's great because to get affordable housing is so important.

"Corsham is an area of housing need. There are 155 households on the housing needs register with Corsham as their first choice.

"It's really good that this council has this money in the budget to give for affordable homes. It's a knock on effect to getting the homelessness situation solved because we are concerned about that."

The plans to develop the site for residential use have been in the pipeline for months.

And now the grant has been agreed work can begin on the 36 homes which consist of one-bed flats, two and three-bed houses and two-bed bungalows.

Twenty-six of the homes will be available to rent and nine for shared ownership with the Housing Association.

A request for an affordable housing grant was made from within the £2 million grant approved within the 2005 to 2006 capital budget.

Coun Rooke said if they hadn't received the grant there would be no new homes.

"It's a priority for us," she said. "It's something good for Corsham and it will help people who need affordable homes there are many of them.

"Without the money we wouldn't have got the affordable homes, but it's a positive thing, so I would have been surprised if we hadn't."

Officers worked with Bath and North East Somerset Council on the site and they will be offered five of the shared ownership properties in return for their support in the joint bid for funding to the Housing Corporation.

Westlea Housing Association runs the housing needs register and the houses are allocated on a basis of priority.

Coun Rooke said: "Our district council can nominate people to go into 31 of the houses. If we have people we want to go into them we have the first chance of that.

"Five of the houses are shared ownership and B&NES will have first choice.

"People will be offered the chance to go into the homes and the more people that come off the waiting list it helps. This is what we want."

She added: "They will be there for the people of Corsham, and that's the important thing."

She said the houses will be perfect for growing families, or people who have been in temporary accommodation and are waiting for something more permanent.

"This may be what they were waiting for so it's a good thing for families in Corsham," Coun Rooke said.

The affordable homes form part of a wider development project at Pockeredge Farm which will eventually consist of about 600 homes.