Brent Housing Partnership (BHP) and Brent Council have been awarded £5m to spend on an innovative pilot project to tackle homelessness in the borough.

The money has been awarded after a successful bid to the Department of Communities and Local Government under the Settled Homes Initiative, which encourages new ways in which local authorities can provide long-term settled homes for homeless households.

BHP will use the money to set up a company to provide an additional 760 properties with two or more bedrooms to house homeless families in Brent.

These properties will be acquired through a combination of new development and buying properties over the next five years.

The project will aim to house more than 1,500 people into permanent affordable accommodation.

Initially, five hundred families will be housed in newly acquired council properties with secure tenancies and a further 260 properties with assured tenancies.

Brent Council's Director of Housing and Community Care Martin Cheeseman said: "We are pleased to be given this opportunity to pilot this scheme in Brent. Initiatives such as this are key to the council's strategy to provide homeless households high quality and well-managed settled accommodation over the long-term and provide a further opportunity to meet for the council to meet the acute shortage of affordable housing in Brent."

BHP finance director Gary Chase said: "This is a prime example of the council and ALMO working together to provide affordable housing in Brent and therefore reducing Brent's need to house families in temporary accommodation.

"We hope that over the life of this scheme 760 families will be able to move out of temporary accommodation into settled housing."

Forty per cent of the council's housing stock is made up of one-bedroom accommodation. However, the greatest demand comes for affordable housing comes from households looking for family housing of two or more bedrooms.