Hundreds of homes could be provided by Dorset Council to help ease the county’s housing shortfall.
The move comes with a pledge to end the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless people, prioritising families.
Plans are also being made to use or re-purpose council-owned properties to help provide additional homes and to lease properties, where needed, to tackle local shortfalls.
In time the council could set up an arms-length business to provide affordable housing across the county, although plans for this have not been finalised.
Portfolio holder Cllr Gill Taylor told a Cabinet meeting that the Lib Dem administration was hoping to provide more homes to help tackle the needs of what she said was around 8,000 on the housing waiting list.
She said: “We aim to drive the delivery of homes people need and are affordable… and as a council are committed to leave behind bed and breakfast by having the appropriate amount of temporary accommodation.”
A report before the meeting suggests that around a hundred properties might need to be leased to tackle the number of households in temporary accommodation with more than 200 currently in that position.
In time the council believes it could save £800,000 a year by leasing properties for temporary homes, rather than using expensive bed and breakfast, or other private suppliers.
Cllr Taylor said much of the council’s plans to increase affordable housing in the county would rely on working in partnership with others, the authority not able to afford a ‘go it alone’ approach.
£10 million has been put in the council’s capital budget over the next three years for the housing strategy, to be funded, if the money is needed, by borrowing. Each proposal will be decided on a case by case basis.
Support for the strategy came from across the political divide.
Dorset Council has confirmed that its large-scale home leasing plan could amount to 1,200 homes over three years, at the rate of around 400 a year.
The council will also run a pilot project, working with partners, to build affordable housing on council land, with a focus on social rent homes.