TAUNTON Deane Borough Council has delivered fewer than half the affordable homes which it promised in the last 12 months.

The council pledged in 2012 to deliver 4,000 affordable homes for the borough up to 2028.

It has a target of 200 in each financial year, of which ten per cent - 20 properties - must be new council houses.

In 2017-18, only 92 such homes were delivered, with delays on six sites identified – including one in Wellington owned by the authority.

The council has said that it is on target to deliver 600 affordable homes over the last three years, and that new sites were continuing to come forward.

A report on the status of these projects came before the council’s corporate scrutiny committee, which met at West Monkton Church of England Primary School on Thursday evening (June 21).

Richard Doyle, the council’s corporate strategy and performance officer, said that six schemes had “slipped in their completions”, but would be completed in the coming months.

Cllr Habib Farbahi said that he was disappointed by the news, claiming that developers had built 1,000 houses for sale on the open market in the same 12 months.

“It’s not good that we have managed to deliver 1,000 homes on the open market and not enough of our affordable building,” he said.

A council spokesman said that “the nature of development” meant that some schemes would slip from one year into the next.

“If a three-year rolling target is taken of around 600 new homes - we are meeting our target,” they said.

“The homes are provided either by the council itself, or by housing associations and other developers.

“The council, through its house-building programme, is delivering 26 new affordable homes at the Weavers Arms site in Rockwell Green, Wellington. The development is well under way and is expected to be completed later this year.”

The council managed to deliver 284 homes in 2016-17 and 222 homes in 2015-16 – bringing the total over the last three years to 598.

The spokesman added: “The completion of affordable homes can be delayed by numerous factors – for example, bad weather, materials supplies or technical delays on site.

“The Taunton Deane affordable housing delivery pipeline remains strong as sites continue to come forward.

“Affordable homes are delivered throughout the borough, but the majority are in and around Taunton and Wellington as the main population centres.”