The search is on to find a top team to help the Council to develop thousands of new homes across Sheffield over the next decade and to improve the neighbourhoods they are built in.

Sheffield City Council is stepping up plans to build around 2,500 quality new homes in the city in the next 10-15 years.

Cabinet members have already given a positive response to the plans and now authority bosses will be taking a further step forward next week by seeking a preferred bidder with whom to form a Local Housing Company - a pioneering new approach to housing being spearheaded by the Council with support from the Government's Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

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The Council is searching for the best private sector partner to step up and take on this significant long-term project, one of the biggest the Council has undertaken in recent years. Council bosses have now advertised for a preferred bidder in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Under the plans the Council proposes to set up a Local Housing Company with a partner with the aim of speeding up the building of new houses, increasing the number of affordable houses being built, making sure the homes are high quality and improving the areas in which they are built.

The new properties will include homes for sale and for rent and many will be affordable for local people.

The Council would invest land in the company and a private sector partner would invest money to match the value of the land the authority puts in. If necessary, the company would then borrow money to fund house building. The profits and risks would be shared equally between the Council and its partner.

(CD/JM)