Liverpool City Council has revealed plans to give local firms a chance to secure work on a £500 million housebuilding programme across the city.

Foundations, a new ethical housing company established by Mayor Joe Anderson, aims to create 10,000 new homes and refurbish dilapidated housing stock in Liverpool.

With aims to rebalance the city's social housing stock, revolutionise the rent to buy sector and drive up council tax receipts for the council, the new frameworks will be designed specifically to enable Liverpool- and Merseyside-based businesses to pitch for work as part of the derelict refurbishment and new build programmes.

Mayor Joe Anderson said: "Foundations has the potential to be absolutely transformational in so many ways, such as by creating the right housing mix that the city needs and generating new council tax income which we can reinvest in services.

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"But crucially it is also vital that as part of the construction programme that we give as many local businesses as possible the chance to bid for work from Foundations.

"We've already got a good track record of doing that with our schools investment programme, with 74 percent of the spending going to Merseyside firms helping create 2,000 jobs and 200 apprenticeships – and we want to replicate that with Foundations."

Chair of Foundations, Frank Hont, said: "The sheer scale of the work that Foundations will be doing over the next few years offers a tremendous opportunity to local firms, ranging from the supply of materials or fitting out properties.

"The procurement framework aims to recycle as much of the spending as possible locally through the city region economy, into the coffers of local businesses and ultimately the pockets of local workers, benefiting households across the city region.

"It is an example of how the work that Foundations will be doing will have far reaching benefits that stretches far beyond just building new homes."

The council's procurement team have already published a soft market testing exercise with a questionnaire for contractors here.

The sector has until September 14 to reply, after which feedback will be collated and then used to fine-tune the framework before its official launch at the end of September.

(LM/MH)