Workington will face an affordable housing crisis if urgent measures are not taken soon, councillors have warned.

Town councillors have slammed a lack of action by Allerdale council to build higher levels of affordable homes in Workington.

At the moment, Allerdale council guidelines say housing developments in Cockermouth of 11 properties or more should have at least 40 per cent affordable housing in an attempt to tackle a serious shortage.

In Workington, that figure is 20 per cent.

While discussing the borough council’s draft local plan, which suggests maintaining those figures, Workington Town Council’s policy and resources committee agreed to push for the 40 per cent figure in Workington to avoid a similar crisis in the future.

Councillor Denise Rollo said: “I think we are not taking a long-term view on this. Obviously Cockermouth has no affordable housing at this time because people want to live there so it has bumped the house prices up.

“I don’t doubt that there is a need for that 40 per cent, I’m all for it, but only having 20 per cent in Workington is not right.

“At this moment in time I completely agree that there is plenty of affordable housing, but when you take Harrington for instance there are developments that are all going to be houses that are £250,000.

“Development is brilliant and it gives us a diverse community.

However, it is increasing and if you are born in Harrington now you probably can’t afford to live there and that is going to spread into town.

“There is an attraction to Workington. People want to live here and over the years Workington has the possibility of turning into how Cockermouth is now.

“We need to be very clever looking forward and say we don’t want to fight it in 10 years’ time when we have the opportunity to do something now. We need to retain people in the area.”

Coun Antony McGuckin agreed. He said: “I think these new developments have got to have a higher percentage of affordable homes. You must not put profit over what a community should be built on.

“There should be fairness and parity. If it is good enough for Cockermouth, it is good enough for Workington.”

The draft local plan sets out a proposed increase of 1,979 houses in Workington, including Seaton, by 2029.

Land east of Whitestiles in Seaton, off Stainburn Road and off Moor Road in Stainburn, off Main Road in Harrington and the former Southfield School site in Moorclose have been identified for development, with land off Seaton Road in Seaton and Woodville Way in High Harrington earmarked as reserve sites.

Today is the final day people can reply to the consultation on part two of the draft local plan.

More information can be found online at www.allerdale.gov.uk/siteallocations