THE city council’s budget for new housing could soar next year to £41.8m from £3.4m after Government scrapped a borrowing cap.

The council was told last October that a borrowing cap on its housing avenue account would be ended at the end of that month.

The move is likely to trigger an increase in councils building or supporting the building of new homes.

Updated details of housing developments the city council wants to build are provided in a report – with fewer homes than initially planned on the site of a former homeless shelter.

The council said it might have built up to 50 homes on the site of Lucy Faithfull House, in Speedwell Street.

But it now says just 36 are expected to be built there. Half of those will be affordable and half sold on the open market.

Its demolition was controversial. Some city councillors said they wanted the building revamped to provide accommodation for Oxford’s homeless before it was knocked down last year.

The council said it wants its housing company to help build 572 homes until 2026, including some at Barton Park.

Of 95 socially rented units at Barton Park, 22 have already been handed over to tenants.

The authority hopes a housing programme in Rose Hill is completed in November 2020, with 43 homes to be built there. All would be affordable.

Another scheme for homes in Between Towns Road, Cowley was approved by councillors for a second time last month.

That will see another 38 homes built. Again, half of those will be designated as affordable.

The council said it wants that to be completed by December 2020.

Other schemes include Elsfield Hall in Cutteslowe and Cumberlege Court in Marston.

There will be 35 flats built across the sites, with 18 of those affordable. They should also be completed by the end of 2020.

The report prepared by the council’s head of housing, Stephen Clarke, also includes details of other potential housing developments.

It said it could build up to 175 homes at Redbridge Paddock.

Another 80 homes might be built at Hill View Farm, 60 at Goose Green, 30 off Abingdon Road in Bertie Place, and another 15 in Westlands Drive, in Northway.