Prescott's Affordable Housing Starts at £175,000!

Reports today show that the flagship scheme promoted by John Prescott to provide low cost homes for first time buyers has so far been unable to keep the costs below the promised £60,000 price tag.The Deputy Prime Minister challenged developers to construct more than 1,000 homes on ten state-owned sites at a cost of £60,000 each to help first-time buyers on to the property ladder.

Mr Prescott has been left with considerable egg on his face ,not for the first time!, when Conservative MP Mark Lancaster, MP for Milton Keynes North East, revealed that the scheme in his area was selling the flats and houses at a starting price of £175,000-£195,000.

Crest Nicholson are the first to put these properties on sale, the price tag just slightly over Prescotts figure with a starting price of £175,000.The spokesman for the company released this statement:'This was never a competition to provide cheap housing, it was to improve construction efficiency and design and we are satisfied that Crest Nicholson met that criteria. It was John Prescott who linked the £60,000 price to affordable housing. We never gave that impression.'

Despite this revelation, the Housing Minister Yvette Cooper stated that 54 of the 68 homes on that particular site would be affordable and that social housing for first time buyers would be included.