The latest round of applications for housing private finance initiatives in 2005/6 will exceed the total cash made available by the ODPM.

With figures available for nine of the 11 council bidders, total bids stand at £649.2m – already exceeding the £610m pot for the latest round.

The non-housing revenue account PFI bids came from Birmingham (£54m); Guildford (£40m); Islington (“more than £100m”) ; Medway (£8.2m); Weymouth & Portland (£36m); and Woking (£43m).

PFI housing revenue account bids came from Leeds (about £100m); Oldham (£90m); and Salford (£178m). Broadly speaking, housing revenue account PFI relates to refurbishment and non-housing revenue account PFI to new-build schemes.

Although Lewisham and Manchester have “expressed interest” in the latest round of bidding, there are no details available about the size of their bids.

Graham Moody, managing director of consultant GMA, said: “The ODPM may weed out some councils by saying they’re not ready yet because procurement will take too long.”

Source

Housing Today