MORE than £8.5 million will be spent in Herefordshire and Worcestershire this year by Partnership Housing Group.

Besides providing 100 new homes, the money will pay for improvements to around 700 others from the group's 5,000-strong stock.

A grant of £2.6 million has come from Malvern Hills District Council, Herefordshire Council and the Housing Corporation to build new homes and buy existing properties.

These will provide a combination of homes for rent and low-cost ownership, including some already in the pipeline and others still to be put forward for planning approval.

Commercial director Richard Grounds said the biggest single scheme, already under way, would be at Suckley, with 18 new homes. Others include nine at Bransford, six at Kempsey, six at Castlemorton, five at Oak Crescent, Malvern, and two at Geraldine Close.

The Group has set aside nearly £6 million for repairs and improvements to its housing stock, including replacement windows, new kitchens and bathrooms, rewiring and new heating systems.

"This is part of an ongoing programme promised to tenants when Elgar Housing Association bought the homes from the district council in 1995," said Mr Grounds. "In the past six years we've carried out improvements of some kind to the majority of properties, certainly more than 4,000."