THERE have been 900 affordable homes available across Bolton in the past five years, new statistics have revealed.

The government has released data which shows that Bolton Council boasts the third best figure for affordable home provision out of the ten Greater Manchester authorities since 2010 — with only Salford and Manchester City Councils ahead of it.

Across the country, there have been 260,000 affordable homes built in the past five years — including 186,000 through the government’s Affordable Homes Programme.

Bolton’s figure is close to double that of neighbouring Bury and more than 300 more than in Wigan during the same period.

According to the government, affordable housing is “social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing, provided to specified eligible households whose needs are not met by the market.”

The borough’s social housing provider, Bolton at Home, which has only been able to develop its own buildings since 2011, has provided about 150 of the 900 affordable homes.

Chief executive Jon Lord said the overall figures are impressive and are down to a positive relationship with Bolton Council.

He said: “Generally speaking Bolton has done well on this front and that is mainly because of our partnership with the council.

“The authority has always been really positive in supporting us in things like planning permission and land availability and it deserves credit for that.”

Mr Lord said Bolton at Home’s current development programme yields about 70 affordable homes each year but would like to increase that figure to between 100 and 150 per year.

Fourteen of those affordable properties were provided via the £400,000 revamp of the old Hare and Hounds pub in Breightmet last year.

Newly elected Bolton West MP Chris Green said it is important to provide affordable homes but only in the right places.

He said: “There are many brown field sites that can and should be used for developing affordable houses but we don’t want to see our green spaces built on.

“We also don’t want an urban sprawl because it makes public transport more difficult, encouraging more people to drive and putting more pressure on our road network.”

There have been instances in Bolton of developers agreeing to build a quantity of affordable houses as part of wider developments, before reneging on such deals, citing financial issues.

This was the case with Redrow Homes, which originally agreed that four of the 42 flats it planned to build on the site of the former Swallowfield Hotel in Horwich would be affordable homes.

The developer later argued that, unless the condition for affordable housing was changed, it would not be worth their while completing the development — as they would lose too much cash.

Horwich Town Mayor, Cllr Ken Denton said: “I have always said that once developers get planning permission with that condition attached, it should be set in stone.”