Council spends £4.3m buying up private houses on the open market in Milton Keynes

It has purchased 24 homes at an average price of £179,000 apiece.

They are a mixture of two, three and four bedroom dwellings and locations include Stony Stratford, Bletchley and Bradville.

Cabinet member for housing, Councillor Nigel Long said the council also had plans to build 520 homes of its own over the next three years.

Stock will be further boosted with plans to build 190 new homes on four sites on Bletchley’s Lakes Estate.

Cllr Long said: "Buying new council houses on the open market is not the best solution because whilst it helps us meet housing need and take homeless families out of temporary accommodation it will not increase the supply of housing. That is why we are building an in-house ‘Asset Management team’ to oversee the building of hundreds of new council houses.”

He added: "Whilst investing £4.3 million in buying up houses this year is good value for money, our longer term new build programme will end the need to buy houses on the open market.”