A housing developer will be allowed to complete its south Swindon development without building any affordable homes.

But it will give Swindon Borough Council nearly three-quarters of a million pounds so it can have the social housing units built itself.

Developer Lagan Homes has permission to build more than 60 houses on an irregular double triangle of a site off Marlborough Road right next to the Great Western Hospital

In the original planning permission, it was agreed that 30 per cent of the houses would be made available as ‘affordable houses’  - for social rent or shared ownership.

After a viability study, the developer said that it would only be able to build 11 per cent between six and seven affordable units and this latest application was to drop the requirement altogether.

John Lagan from the company said: “There has been something of a perfect storm of increased building costs and increased costs of getting finance that has hit the affordable housing market.

“We have spoken to 13 housing associations about building and managing the affordable homes but only one was interested and it wanted grant funding which isn’t available to houses built under section 106.

"There just isn’t the interest in a small development like this.”

Instead, the company and the borough council’s planning department came up with a solution.

The builder could continue and finish its development without affordable houses, but it will pay the council £720,000. That would be used by the Swindon Housing Development Company, which is owned by the council, to build seven houses for social rent elsewhere.

One member of the committee Councillor Nick Gardiner expressed concern that the original site was very close to the hospital, and affordable homes there would be ideal for people starting their carers working there.

He asked if the houses to be built by the housing development company could be somewhere close to the hospital.

The council’s head of place Richard Bell said: “The difficulty is availability of sites – and most sites  in the borough are a reasonable distance from the hospital- although that’s if you’re driving, and not walking.”

Two committee members Councillors Gary Sumner and Matty Courtliff left the room for the entire item as they are directors of the council’s Swindon Housing Company.

The rest of the committee voted unanimously to allow Lagan Homes to build the rest of the site out and to accept the  £720,000 payment to the borough council.