Agenda item

The Council is undertaking a housing development programme to increase the supply of homes and this report presents the Affordable Housing Development Plan (AHDP) which sets out the criteria for the way new Council homes will be delivered and supports the adoption of the HRA Business Plan 2022-2052.

The Housing Development Manager introduced the Affordable Housing Development Plan with a presentation and outlined to the Committee the issues and challenges with developing a plan.

The Chairman queried whether borrowing for the Development Plan was affordable. In response, Members were informed that until the Asset Management Plan is developed then it would be difficult to assess.

The query was raised with regard to how the Council is going to prevent the investment (in building new affordable housing) from being sold under the right to buy scheme. The Committee were reassured that once a property has been built, the Council will be able to recover its investment in new homes if these are sold. This is due to the cost floor figure which is the amount of money spent on an individual property in the 10 year period prior to the sale, for properties acquired or built after 1 April 2012 this period increases to 15 years. This means that the purchasers full discount would not be applied if that would result in the purchase price being below the cost of purchase/build plus repairs.

Concern was raised that the targets for the development plan were not ambitious and actually represent a net loss of 5 properties per year when factoring in sales under the right to buy scheme. In response, it was explained that the targets are based on the Council’s ability to borrow. Members were informed that the development plan has to be proved as a concept before ambitions are raised. Also, the right to buy receipts have to be spent within a defined timescale otherwise monies have to be returned to the government, although it was confirmed that the Council have never returned right to buy monies to the government.

Further discussion on the development of affordable housing ensued and the question was asked as to how many affordable homes had been built in the previous 5 or 10 years. In response, the Committee was informed that the Council have built 10 properties and purchased 12 in the last 10 years. The replacement hasn’t been like for like, as the Council does not receive like for like monies through right to buy sales.

A comment was made that there had been discussions about building affordable housing for a number of years and that there had been little progress. In response, Members were assured that it is the intention to start building replacement affordable homes at a rate of 5 per year but that the concern had been noted. However another Member commented that they welcomed the cautious approach because the priority is to have enough resources to look after tenants. They added that they want the Council to have plans and fulfil them but this shouldn’t be done rashly.

The point was made that the Council should be ensuring that developers build the affordable housing they said they agreed to do when their applications were given planning permission, particularly in the villages where there isn’t as much affordable housing.