Fourth-round arm’s-length managers to get £500m over three years

The £453m was announced by housing minister Keith Hill at celebrations marking the completion of the transfer of Peterborough council’s 10,000 homes to new landlord Cross Keys Homes.

However, this total is set to rise to £500m in the next few weeks when the figure for Wolverhampton is confirmed. It has been left off the list until negotiations are completed over its updated stock conditions survey.

As predicted by Housing Today, the ODPM has also confirmed that launch of a £33m loan fund to help social landlords become more efficient.

The government hopes that the fund – which will involve the use of “local procurement consortia” similar to the Fusion 21 model in Merseyside – will help councils and housing associations save the £830m that will be expected of them annually by 2007/8.

Hill also announced £450m for the next stages of the 12 ALMOs in round two. Bids were also invited for the next rounds of ALMO, stock transfer and the private finance initiative with a closing date of 28 January 2005.