Nearly £10m has been spent buying 67 new homes to help cut down a council’s waiting list.

The mix of flats and houses are at The Woodlands development in Herne Bay Road, Broad Oak, near Canterbury, and will be available at affordable rents.

Canterbury City Council (CCC) purchased the homes at a cost of £9.45m and wants to offer them to local families who are waiting for a place to live.

Chiefs at the authority say the deal is the first phase of the plan to “overhaul” their housing stock.

Cllr Pip Hazelton, cabinet member for housing at CCC, said: “Built to high industry standards, these one and two-bedroom flats and two and three-bedroom houses will be highly energy efficient, providing homes that will be warm and cosy with low maintenance costs for many years to come.

“It’s no secret that our ambition is to provide social housing at affordable rent that people will be proud to live in and to call home.

“It is no exaggeration to say this acquisition will transform dozens and dozens of lives.

“Research tells us a secure, warm, well-maintained home positively impacts physical and mental health, higher levels of economic activity and greater community involvement.

“By disposing of some of our non-standard stock, along with properties that, even with high levels of retro-fitting and remedial costs, will remain dated, we can reinvest in more new homes like these.

“This will boost the quantity and quality of council homes and help provide a place for local people to live.

“This will be our first step along the road to overhauling our housing stock across the short, medium and longer term.”

The homes purchased by CCC include 10 one-bedroom flats, 24 two-bedroom flats, four two-bedroom houses and 29 three-bedroom houses at an average price of £141,000 per home.

The homes will be paid for by a combination of capital receipts, the selling of unsuitable homes, and borrowing which will be repaid by the income from rents – a tried and tested way to finance a purchase like this.

In total, 456 homes are planned for The Woodlands development. In a nod to Canterbury author Mary Tourtel, the road names will have a Rupert Bear theme.

Once complete, the development will comprise 15.8 acres of green open space, including trim trails and play areas, and the developer has committed to planting more than 150 new trees and nearly 14,000 hedgerows and saplings, alongside creating 10,000 metres of hedgehog highways.

Earlier this year, couple Maureen and Dave King hit out at the construction of the new builds, claiming they were towering over their garden.

They said their peace had been shattered by the building of the “eyesore” two-and-a-half storey homes.