BURY Conservatives want to build 10,000 homes in urban areas over the next 20 years.

They announced the plan to create an arms-length housing development company at last week’s budget meeting.

Tory leader James Daly said the council needs to step into the housing market and create opportunities for local people.

He said developers have not “stepped up” to the challenge of providing affordable housing and have been reluctant to invest in brownfield sites.

At least half of the new homes would be built in the borough’s brownfield sites, Cllr Daly said. However, he also wants the new company to offer its services to other local authorities and generate an income for the council.

He said: “My great hope is that we use Bury traders and building companies and create opportunities through apprenticeships and training people who can learn a new skill and be employed on great wages and provide a really great service to other authorities.”

The councillor said that using new technology, the company could build homes starting from as little as £30,000.

The Tories would fund this mostly by borrowing £10m at a cost of £250,000 a year.

They would also save money by reviewing senior staff pay which amounts to a yearly cost of almost £1m for the chief executive and five directors.

But Cllr Daly did not rule out paying executive salaries to bosses at the proposed development company if it generates enough money to support frontline services.

The project would start paying for itself through sales, rental income and council tax.

He added: “We have come to the point where we have to take an ambitious step and that’s taken to make sure we have a sound financial future.”

His party was sceptical about council “aspirations” to build 4,000 council-owned homes in the next five years.

Cllr Eamonn O’Brien called the Tory plan as a “non-starter”. He said: “It would waste taxpayers’ money on setting up a housing company we don’t need, because we have one already, and is based on cutting out the very people within the council who would be needed to deliver it.”