MILLIONS of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being wasted because Southend Council has not forced developers to build enough affordable homes, it has been claimed.

The council’s Independent group says too much money is being wasted housing people in private accommodation, rather than council property managed by housing associations such as South Essex Homes.

Independent councillor Ron Woodley said in 2009-10, the average housing benefit paid per household was £5,663 in the private sector, against £3,800 in public. Mr Woodley said if the 9,324 families in private sector housing across Southend had been in public sector housing, the total cost to the council would have been £35.4million, as opposed to £52.8million.

In the past decade, the council has struggled to provide more than 10 per cent of new homes built as affordable – against a Government target of between 20 and 30 per cent, depending on the number of homes in a development.

The Independent group says developers should have been pushed much harder to provide more affordable homes.

Independent leader Martin Terry said: “It’s costing taxpayers an arm and a leg. This is a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money.”

But Anna Waite, the Southend Tory councillor responsible for housing, defended the council’s record.

She said: “I am fully committed to bringing forward affordable good quality housing.”

Mrs Waite said the council had policies to prevent homelessness, was bringing properties back into use and making maximum use of the private sector to meet the housing need.

Tory council leader Nigel Holdcroft added: “The Indepen-dents are completely unrealistic.

“I don’t know how they arrived at that figure.

“They keep on and on about the need for affordable housing, but they don’t come up with constructive solutions for how to respond to it. We are constrained by the fact we are in a geo- graphically small area in which we have very little housing land available.

“If affordable housing is linked to private development, then there is little room for manoeuvre in this economic situation.

“So the opportunity for significant development is very limited indeed.”