A NEW Southampton City Council venture designed to lead to hundreds of new city homes could be up and running next year.

Labour council housing chief Warwick Payne said the proposed Development Company could be ready to go next year, with the Townhill Park estate regeneration plan one of the first projects to benefit.

The plans, first revealed in the Daily Echo earlier this year, would see the council set up a commercial property arm with the aim of having more control over housing developments and money from rent, leases and sales.

The new company could fund some projects through borrowing and some through one-off cash investments from the Government and some housing sites could be kept on as council homes while others and commercial sites could be rented out or sold.

The Conservatives criticised Labour for the fact that it will have taken them four years to build some homes at Townhill Park - a scheme first started under the Tories - but Cllr Payne countered by saying it was the same amount of time it had taken to get the Exford Avenue scheme in Harefield, a Conservative scheme, off the ground.