A PLEDGE has been made to plough £64m into building thousands of affordable homes in Oxford.

Oxford City Council unveiled plans today to build at least 2,050 affordable homes in the city between now and 2023, of which 530 will be delivered by its own housing company.

Current and planned developments include Barton Park, Oxpens, Northern Gateway, Blackbird Leys district centre and Littlemore Park.

The scheme hopes to tackle sky-high house prices, which repel workers from settling in the city.

Mike Rowley, the council’s board member for housing, said: “An average house price of £450,000 is simply out of reach for people typically earning £30-40,000 a year.

“However, radical changes in land acquisition policies are essential along with the removal of the borrowing cap on local authorities.”

He called on the Government to implement such changes to address an ‘urgent need for genuinely affordable housing’ in Oxford.

In the past four years the council has spent £17m delivering affordable homes including social rented, affordable rented and shared ownership homes. By 2022 that figure will mushroom to £64m.

Beyond 2023 the council’s Oxford Housing Company Limited has planned the delivery of a further 500 affordable homes as part of regeneration schemes in the city.

Council spokesman Mish Tullar said the company allowed the council ‘greater flexibility in delivering affordable homes on difficult sites’.

Private developers building more than 10 units will also be responsible for delivering affordable housing, in line with current council policy.