CHERWELL District Council has agreed to fund 46 new affordable housing units at a cost of £1.9m.

The council's executive met last week to set aside funding of £1,925,580 for the new homes, which will be built in five separate schemes.

Forty-two of the units are in rural areas Adderbury, Arncott, Bletchingdon, and Ambrosden.

The council's money supplements a recent £12.5m allocation by the Housing Corporation for new affordable homes in Cherwell.

James Macnamara, the council's executive member for housing, said: "We reviewed schemes the Housing Corporation could not fund and prioritised four projects in villages. The homes are desperately needed to maintain rural communities.

"It will bring the number of new affordable houses built in Cherwell to 555 by the year 2008 a long way towards achieving the target of 600 by 2011."

The executive also welcomed a reduction in the number of homeless people in Cherwell.

It praised the introduction of a new system that cut the number of homeless cases from a high of 310 in 2004/05 to 178 in 2005/6.

Mr Macnamara said: "I'm delighted that homelessness has reduced so dramatically in Cherwell.

"Tackling homelessness needs partnership working and I thank all the statutory and voluntary partners who have worked to achieve this success."