MORE affordable homes are being built to help young people in Babergh - but it still may not be enough according to housing bosses.The average house of a price in the district is currently £229,148, keeping most young people in the area off the housing ladder, according to Babergh District Council.

MORE affordable homes are being built to help young people in Babergh - but it still may not be enough according to housing bosses.

The average house of a price in the district is currently £229,148, keeping most young people in the area off the housing ladder, according to Babergh District Council.

To tackle the problem the council has pledged to have 700 new affordable homes either built or in the development pipeline across the district by 2009/10.

And figures released today show it is on the way to achieving the figure.

Between 2004/5 and the end of September 2007 there were 239 new affordable homes completed, 12 housing schemes are currently under construction which will deliver 245 new affordable homes, and 271 new affordable homes have planning permission granted with a potential for 380 more taking into consideration schemes under negotiation.

Ian Tippett, Babergh's housing services manager, said: “Babergh is now starting to see the results of all the previous hard work put in by council officers, parish councils and our partner housing associations.

“The statistics speak for themselves - more affordable houses are being finished and becoming homes for local people.

“However, there are still 1,900 applicants on our housing register and therefore we need to keep working on obtaining planning permission for further dwellings and seek out more potential schemes.

“The problem we have at the moment is that much of the easily-developed land has been identified and brought forward so Babergh is having to be very creative in how we manage to deliver even more homes while respecting our own planning policies and the high quality of our local environment.”