BUILDING 1,000 new homes in central Middlesbrough should be “relatively easy” in the next two to four years, according to Middlesbrough’s mayor.

Social housing giant Thirteen has lodged plans to build 145 homes in Gresham with the aim of starting construction next year. 

But mayor Andy Preston told the latest overview and scrutiny board he was “absolutely confident” as many as 1,000 new homes could be built in the centre of town “two to four years from now”. 

Middlesbrough Council’s long term aim for the centre of town is to create an extra 2,000 homes to boost the population by 4,000 to attract younger professionals and regenerate the area. 

Fielding a question on where there was a need for new homes, the independent mayor said TS1 and parts of TS2 at Middlehaven, the Boho development and the docks would cope with a 1,000 new homes with “relative ease”. 

Mr Preston added: “It’s going to be a lot of work, haggling and a lot of fighting but it won’t be too difficult.

“When we do that we’ll be starting to catch up with other places which have been striding ahead for decades. 

“Our natural peers have taken steps ahead of us and we’ve been falling further and further behind.

“The first thing we need to do to support our retail and support our poorer communities in the centre of town is to get new people living here.

“The steps for that are to make it safe, make it clean, create the amenities that people want and create the housing that people want.”

Mr Preston said similar sized places to Middlesbrough, such as Portsmouth, had seen “colossal booms” in urban living.

And he believed the town could draw new residents in from Ingleby Barwick, Billingham, Guisborough, and Redcar

He added: “There are lots of people who say we can’t and it’s a pipe dream – I promise we can do this, I promise we can.

“We have to make it safe and clean, create amenities and we have to create the kind of housing that people want.

“When we do that, there’ll be loads of demand."