Manchester's Plymouth Grove private finance initiative project is expected to be the first of eight national pathfinders to be signed – three years after it was first unveiled.
Contracts are due to be signed next Wednesday.

Housing minister Lord Rooker is expected to be present when Manchester City Council and the Grove Village Consortium – made up of Harvest Housing Group, Gleeson Homes and Nationwide – sign the deal.

The consortium fought off competition from three other bidders to win selection last August.

As part of a £100m investment, more than 660 homes are to be renovated on the Plymouth Grove estate.

Between 400 and 500 homes are to be built, and some 436 homes are due for demolition in the next three years.

The new homes are to be a mixture of tenures. Work is expected start on site by the summer.

The PFI process is one of three stock options open to councils to allow them to invest to bring their housing up the decent homes standard by 2010. However, the controversial process has been dogged with delays across all eight of the pathfinders.

As a result the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has been pressured into making a number of changes to the scheme to make it more attractive to other local authorities.

Source

Housing Today