ENGLAND’S FOUR MILLIONTH AFFORDABLE HOME OPENED IN MARPLE

Housing Minister, Stephen Williams, and local MP, Andrew Stunell, opened England's 4 millionth social and affordable home in Marple last week with Stockport Homes.

Commenting, Andrew said -

"I'm delighted that Stockport is once again being recognised nationally as a leading council with Stockport Homes as a great provider of homes at affordable rents for local residents."

"The Minister's visit to Marple to open the Peacefield scheme today is a great signal of how hard the Coalition Government has been working since 2010. At long last we've started to reverse the catastrophic losses of social homes for rent under the Tories and Labour. This is a historic moment when England once more has 4 million social homes for rent, something Labour threw away back in 2004. It is very much down to the Liberal Democrats in Government that tenants and those on Stockport's waiting list can have some prospect of an affordable home in the future."

Stephen Williams, Housing Minister at the Department for Communities & Local Government, commented on the visit -

"It was a pleasure to visit Marple to open the Peacefield development. To see firsthand the great work Stockport Homes are doing by providing affordable homes for local families there really was motivating. Stockport is setting a golden example of how to get it right."

Stockport Homes brought the development on Peacefield forward for residential development in 2012 and it has benefitted from over £400,000 from the Government's Affordable Homes Programme.

Locally Stockport has received over £10 million from the Affordable Homes Programme, which has helped to deliver nearly 500 affordable homes for people in Stockport since 2011.

98,000 affordable homes have been delivered nationally through the programme since it started in 2011, which is more than half way toward the target of 170,000 by 2015.