A housing developer has agreed to sell a house for £1 - following a row over the size of its homes.
The three-bedroom house, with a market value of around £190,000, will be used as temporary housing for homeless families.
It comes after South Derbyshire District Council said it would "not accept" four other homes on the development as social housing - because they were too small.
The developer, Derby-based Monument Two Ltd, had been granted permission to build 42 homes on a former Calder Aluminium site, Derbyshire Live reports .
This was later reduced to 39 homes, four of which would be affordable housing.
But the district council said it "cannot house families in properties of this square footage".
All of the area's 11 housing associations had rejected the homes because they were too small.
Last night, Eileen Jackson, the district council's strategic housing manager, said the developer had, after much negotiation, agreed to settle the issue by selling a bigger house to the council for £1.
It is believed that the four would-be affordable homes will now be sold at 75 per cent of their full market value.
Ms Jackson said that the house sold to the council for £1 would be a three-bed property built elsewhere in the Willington and Findern ward valued at £190,000.
She said the home would be used as "temporary housing for the statutory homeless" and that the council would save £22,000 each year which it currently spends temporarily placing homeless families in B&Bs.
Rent on the home, she said, would bring in £6,000 a year for the council.
Ms Jackson said: “This will enable homeless families to access suitable accommodation in this area that is currently not there.”
Cllr Amy Wheelton said: “I agree that surely it would be much better for homeless families to be in a house instead of a B&B.”
The smaller properties will be sold on the open market rather than being used as social housing.
Ms Jackson said that the agreed proportion of affordable housing on the Repton Road site was already "not great" at 10 per cent, but this was accepted due to the cost to the developer of preparing the site.
She said: "There has been no investment from registered providers, unsurprisingly. They (the small houses) are not big enough for affordable houses.
"The developer had offered a financial sum in lieu of the houses to enable the developer to sell their houses at full market price.
"The council negotiated this sum several times, with it increasing a couple of times, but it would not have been enough to buy or build a house in the area."
