AN INFLUENTIAL Westminster committee is to turn the spotlight on a critical shortage of affordable homes in York.
The investigation by the House of Commons housing select committee has so far focused on spiralling house prices in the South East and South West.
But tomorrow, MPs will take evidence from Portakabin subsidiary Yorkon - which built a pioneering affordable homes project in York. Yorkon is expected to tell the committee how it completed the Sixth Avenue apartments in only a few days, complete with bathrooms, kitchens, plumbing, heating, doors and windows.
The homes, managed by Ryedale Housing Association, were manufactured in York and craned on to pre-prepared foundations on a brownfield site.
MPs are investigating whether this could provide the solution to the shortage of affordable home in areas where first-time buyers are struggling to get a first foot on the property ladder.
York became the first area outside London to benefit from this type of project because property prices in the city mirror those in the South East.
York MP Hugh Bayley has called for the city to be handed millions of extra pounds to build more new "affordable" homes.
He has urged Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to make York a special case.
Updated: 17:21 Tuesday, October 29, 2002
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