IN Brief:
- Leeds City Council’s Council Housing Growth Programme has built or acquired 1,116 homes.
- Direct council new builds account for 43 per cent of programme delivery, with acquisitions providing the remainder.
- A further £200m has been committed to the programme’s second phase covering 2026–31.
Leeds City Council has passed the 1,000-home mark through its Council Housing Growth Programme, with 1,116 homes now built or acquired for use as council housing across the city.
More than 200 of those homes were delivered during the 12 months to the end of March 2026. When affordable housing delivered by registered providers and through section 106 agreements is included, Leeds recorded 943 affordable homes in 2025/26, which the council says is its highest annual total for three decades.
The programme combines direct new-build development with acquisitions from private developers and property owners. Council-built homes account for 43 per cent of the 1,116 delivered to date, with acquisitions making up the remainder. That mixed model allows the authority to add stock through its own construction pipeline while also taking completed or in-progress homes where they meet programme requirements.
Recent new-build completions include a Middleton development containing 100 family homes, 16 wheelchair-accessible bungalows, and the 60-apartment Gascoigne House extra care facility. A further 55 homes have been delivered across several sites in Gipton, while Brooklands Avenue in Seacroft has added 25 one-bedroom apartments and eight houses.
Construction remains active elsewhere in the programme. A 65-apartment extra care development is under way in Armley on the former Middlecross Day Centre site, while the Hough Top development in Swinnow is providing 82 houses and apartments on the former Hough Side High School site. Both schemes are due to provide affordable rented homes when complete.
The next pipeline is also moving through planning. Applications have recently been submitted for Council Housing Growth Programme schemes at Richmond Road in Farsley, Wood Lane in Rothwell, and the former Kingsdale Court flats site in the Boggart Hill area of Seacroft. Those projects extend the programme beyond the developments already on site.
Acquisition continues alongside construction. Leeds has agreed to take 41 homes at Persimmon’s Morwick Green development off York Road, as well as a further 42 homes at Laneside Farm and Wellington Mount. Five of those properties are already included within the current 1,116 total, with the remaining 78 due to be added as they are completed and handed over.
Homes England support through the Social and Affordable Homes Programme means the properties acquired at those three Persimmon developments can be provided for social rent. The mix includes houses, bungalows, and apartments, adding different property types without the council having to originate every scheme itself.
The delivery model shows why the headline total is more useful when broken down than when treated as a single construction number. Direct council development creates greater control over design, tenure, accessibility, energy performance, and site regeneration, but it also carries planning, procurement, construction, and financing risk. Acquisition can increase stock faster where suitable homes are already being built, although the authority has less influence over the original design and programme.
Leeds is using both routes because affordable housing delivery cannot depend on one pipeline alone. The same logic applies to the wider 943-home annual figure, which combines council activity with housing association delivery and developer obligations rather than relying on a single client or procurement model.
Funding remains central to what happens next. The majority of the first five-year phase was funded through the council’s housing service using Right to Buy receipts and borrowing. The executive board has committed a further £200 million for the 2026–31 second phase, giving the authority a defined capital base from which to bring forward more sites and acquisitions.
The second phase will still face familiar construction constraints. Suitable land has to be assembled and consented, project costs have to remain compatible with affordable rents, and programmes have to absorb building safety, energy performance, accessibility, and infrastructure requirements without allowing individual schemes to become unviable.
Several of the current projects show how the pipeline is being spread across different building types rather than concentrated on conventional family housing. Extra care apartments, wheelchair-accessible bungalows, smaller flats, and larger houses all sit within the same programme, increasing design and procurement complexity but allowing the stock to respond to different parts of the waiting list.
Passing 1,000 homes is therefore a delivery milestone rather than a natural end point. With £200 million committed for the next phase, active construction at Armley and Hough Top, three further planning applications in the pipeline, and 78 contracted acquisitions still to be handed over, the programme already contains the work needed to move the total materially higher.
