A COUNCIL has been awarded over £700,000 to help boost housing development.

Blackburn with Darwen Council has been granted the money as part of an £8.9million cash injection into key community projects to help kick-start the building of homes across the Northern Powerhouse area.

The sum of £670,000 has been earmarked for the Griffin area of Blackburn, £35,000 will go to Fishmoor Drive and the Newfield development area will receive £32,000.

The money will mean brownfield sites in the borough can be improved to make land more attractive for housing developers by removing costly or difficult site problems.

Cllr Phil Riley, executive member for regeneration at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: “We’re delighted to have secured this funding that will help us to hit our targets for housebuilding across the borough, which is one of the council’s key priorities.

“It will enable us to address the issues on these difficult sites that have real potential, as currently developers are telling us that they are reluctant to take on brownfield sites because of all of the hidden costs.”

The £670,000 awarded to the Griffin area of Blackburn will improve land to make way for an estimated 140 new homes, with potentially more to come on the other two sites.

Speaking about the importance of investing in to the Northern Powerhouse, Minister for Housing and Planning Dominic Raab said: “It’s part of our strategy to build the homes Britain needs, and carry local communities with us.

“We’re determined to make buying or renting more affordable for young families and those on low or middle incomes.”

This announcement from the minister comes just days after the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that home ownership among middle income 25 to 34-year-olds is at the lowest it has been for 20 years.

The other two investments that have been awarded to the area totalling £67,000, will be used for site investigations and surveys on two sites in the south-east Blackburn area, Fishmoor Drive and the Newfield development.

These surveys will assess if it is needed to resolve site contamination so they are prepared for prospective developers.