More than £2m has been released to deal with homelessness in Bromley as the number of families without a permanent home drops for the first time in years.

Councillors agreed last night to move £2.4m from the council’s contingency – money set aside for emergencies – to help ease homelessness pressures that are being seen across the capital.

Officers originally predicted pressures of £3.15m, a figure that has dropped as the number of families being placed in temporary accommodation falls from 20 to 12 a month.

It comes as the number of homeless families has fallen below 1,600 in Bromley, to 1,516, for the first time in years.

Colin Smith, the leader of the council, said at an executive meeting on March 27: “One of the strong points about this contingency drawdown is for the first time in many a long year the number of current homeless has dropped by somewhere in the region of 80.

“That is the reason we are not spending quite as much and why we don’t need the full draw-down. So, it’s not that the trend is over, but fingers crossed and it shows the excellent work we are doing around prevention.”

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Peter Morgan, the cabinet member for housing, added: “We have been making progress on the More Homes Bromley scheme – I am right in saying we have the freehold of 400 of the homes that we wanted to acquired, giving people decent homes which is all to be desired.

“We may well have phase two of that scheme, we are debating that at the moment.

“Additionally we plan to build our own homes on our own land, frankly at the cost we can do it we think the housing benefit will pretty well cover the interest cost in putting up the money to provide them.

“I am hoping we can take care of all these homeless families – indeed there might well be light at the end of the tunnel.”

The majority of the cash will be used to offset temporary accommodation pressure, while £750k will go towards the impact of the Homelessness Reduction Act.

The council is bringing in new strategies to deal with the problems hitting much of London – including a lack of affordable housing, the impact of universal credit and the cost of private renting.

Officers explain in a report: “The homelessness strategy and forthcoming housing strategy set out a number of measures centred on maintaining and extending the focus on early intervention and prevention initiatives, ensuring the most effective use of existing supply and increasing the supply of affordable accommodation.”