A council will bolster its temporary accommodation stock by purchasing residential properties using money obtained from Right to Buy sales.

Southampton City Council leaders have approved the pilot project to spend up to £5 million.

The move involves the local authority buying 24 properties before the end of the current financial year.

Civic chiefs say this will deliver a saving of more than £650,000 a year as the council will spend less on emergency bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless families.

Speaking at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, October 29, leader Cllr Lorna Fielker said: “It is no secret we have got a lot of people on our waiting list, which leads to a lot of people in both emergency and temporary accommodation and we really want to eliminate particularly the need to use emergency bed and breakfast accommodation as far as possible.

“It is particularly expensive to the council but it is not very good for those people who are having to live in those circumstances.”

Under Right to Buy, eligible council tenants can purchase their council-owned property with a significant discount.

Money received from these sales is held by the local authority, with the opportunity to spend it on re-providing affordable homes within a set timeframe.

New temporary flexibilities introduced by the Labour government allow 100 per cent of retained receipts to be spent on replacement affordable housing, with no cap on the percentage that can be delivered as acquisitions.

Previously, both of these elements were capped at 50 per cent, respectively.

The cabinet decision approved the use of up to £5 million of Right to Buy receipts which would have gone to the government if they were not used by the end of 2024/25.

The preference is for the authority to buy newly built properties, with the majority being two-bed homes, alongside some one-bed and three-bed dwellings.

There are currently more than 8,000 applicants on Southampton’s housing register.

Latest figures show the non-priority waiting time for a one-bed home in the city is 4.3 years, with it rising to 12.6 years for four beds or larger.

Cllr Fielker said: “I have to say the irony is not lost on me that we are using money received by the council as a result of selling homes to buy homes to provide for temporary accommodation.

“I would have to be clear this proposal is not a solution to end homelessness, it is a sticking plaster while the housing crisis we have is dealt with.”