Norwich City Council has agreed to allocate £4.7m to build its first council homes for two decades.

City Hall leaders have agreed to allocate £4.7m to build the first council houses in Norwich for two decades.

Norwich City Council, through a team-up with the Homes and Communities Agency, is looking to develop land at Three Score in Bowthorpe for up to 1,000 properties.

The controlling Labour cabinet earlier this month agreed that, as part of the first phase of that scheme, the council would own 47 of the homes and the full city council rubber-stamped that decision tonight.

The £4.7m project would be partially funded through the sale of eight more homes as shared equity, the use of capital receipts, borrowing against the rent generated by the new homes and borrowing against existing revenue.

The mix of the affordable homes – the council homes and the shared equity homes – at Three Score is planned at six one-bedroom flats, six two-bedroom flats, 16 two-bedroom houses, 22 three-bedroom houses and five four-bedroom houses.

Meanwhile, developers are set to submit revised plans for 1,000 new homes in Bowthorpe.

Changes are expected to be made to the planning application to the Three Score area, which has been earmarked for development for decades.

A planning application was drawn up and put out to public consultation earlier this year.

But points raised during the consultation, mean the designs will now be amended and the plans resubmitted, following a second consultation.

It means no decision is expected by Norwich City Council’s planning committee on whether to allow the development until February 2013 at the earliest.

City development manager Gwyn Jones said: “We had a number of responses from other agencies.

“As a consequence of the comments, we have been making some changes to the planning application.”

The Environment Agency raised concerns about the drainage of surface water on the site.

The design of the drainage is now set to be changed and one area of the development which was earmarked for housing will have drainage ponds.

The latest plans are expected to go on display in the first weeks of the new year.