Westmorland and Furness Council has said that only two of the four properties it plans to buy under a Government-funded housing scheme will be used to house families arriving under the UK's Afghan Resettlement Programme, with the remaining two homes intended for homeless families.
The purchases will be made through the Government's Local Authority Housing Fund Round 4 (LAHF4) programme. Alongside the £480,959 of Government funding, the council will contribute £400,000 from its own Affordable Housing Fund to help complete the purchases and refurbish the properties.
According to council officers, two of the homes – a four-bedroom property and a two-bedroom property – will be allocated to families arriving through the Afghan Resettlement Programme. The remaining two properties will be used to provide accommodation for homeless families.
The council says families housed through the Afghan Resettlement Programme will pay their own rent, with the homes remaining part of the council's housing stock. Should the Afghan families move on in the future, the properties will then be available for use as council housing within the local area.
The Afghan resettlement schemes were established after the UK's 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan, which ran from October 2001 until August 2021. During that time, thousands of Afghan citizens worked alongside British forces and government departments, often placing themselves and their families at significant risk of reprisals from the Taliban.
Between 2021 and 2025, around 38,000 Afghan citizens were resettled in the UK under various Government schemes. Although those schemes closed to new applicants in July 2025, thousands of people who had already applied remain in the system.
As of November 2025, 29,655 people were still waiting to hear the outcome of their eligibility assessments. The Government expects around a further 9,000 people already accepted into the system to be resettled by 2029.
The long-term cost of the programme is also significant. The Government estimates the Afghan resettlement programme will cost a total of £5.7 billion by the time work concludes in 2032-33. By December 2025, around £3.1 billion had already been spent, meaning a substantial proportion of the programme's costs are yet to be incurred.
Earlier this year, the National Audit Office published a report concluding that improvements were still needed to ensure the successful completion of the Afghan resettlement programme.
Gareth Davies, Head of the National Audit Office, said:
"Government departments have worked together in challenging conditions to resettle thousands of Afghan citizens who were at risk of reprisals from the Taliban.
"Although progress has been made under the new Afghan Resettlement Programme, the government has more to do to successfully resettle the affected people in the UK."
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