THE FIRST bricks of a scheme to tackle a severe lack of affordable housing for local families in rural Richmondshire have been laid.

Richmondshire District Council has established the Mercury Trading Company Ltd – an arm’s length trading company intended to be used to build or buy new housing opportunities for rent across the district.

The council is currently working on a business case which will be presented for approval by members at a future meeting of the corporate board.

If passed, the Mercury House Company Ltd will allow the council a more flexible way to work on its own, with local housing associations and with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, to deliver new homes and housing.

“This is an exciting and innovative new approach for Richmondshire District Council,” said Councillor John Blackie, leader of the authority.

“We need to deal with the increasingly worrying lack of homes that local families can afford in our rural and deeply rural communities in the district – a crisis that is seeing the exodus of our young people and their families.

“We see this company as being able to build new housing or purchase existing houses on the open market, which will then be rented to local families who otherwise cannot afford to stay in the very communities where many will have been born and brought up amidst.

“We will focus our attention on communities where little or no housing for rent at affordable levels has become available in recent years.

“This council is committed to trying something new – to attract new young families, bring back those that have left, and retain those already here.”