Affordable housing in the East Riding to be reviewed
Councillors are set to review the East Riding’s approach to affordable housing to address "growing" waiting lists and expand supply.
Councillors are set to review the East Riding’s approach to affordable housing with the aim of cutting “growing” waiting lists and expanding the county’s supply of homes.
East Riding Council’s Housing Review Panel is set to meet for the first time in January and is due to take around a year to complete.
The scope of the panel, to be chaired by Mid Holderness ward member Cllr John Holtby, is yet to be finalised.
Cllr Holtby said the review was prompted by the need for more affordable housing in the East Riding.
Cllr David Nolan, leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition and member of the council’s Western Area Planning Committee, said his party would back the review.
But he added changes in the law at a national level were needed to bring a waiting list of more than 6,000 down.
Cllr Holtby said one area he hoped to look at was ways council planning policy could be used to make developers provide more affordable homes when they put forward applications.
National planning policy states developers must make at least 10 per cent of homes on new estates affordable, meaning they are sold at below market prices.
Rules state exceptions can be made in some cases, with the council using viability assessments to determine whether the requirements can be waived to make developments profitable.
The panel chair said:
“From the first meeting onwards we’ll be looking to find out what the current supply of affordable housing is, the demand for it and what we can do to the planning system to meet it.
“These are fundamentally important questions, and we also need to ask what our definition of an affordable home is.
“If a developer puts in an application for an estate of homes to be sold at £500,000 but the affordable homes on it are to be sold at £350,000, is that really affordable for everyone?
“There’s also the issue around how much mix there should be on developments and whether having developments of homes with a range of prices is a good thing.
“Section 106 agreements also come into it in terms of what we can get from developers for contributions to wider areas for facilities.
“Those are some of the issues we want to look at.
“We’re not sure yet what other avenues we might go down, often with review panels they start with a particular scope and then go off in different directions depending on what we find out.
“Review panels normally last around a year, but this one could be finished quicker depending on what comes out of it.
“The shorter it is the quicker we can get recommendations to full council, I’d like to get through it as quickly as possible.”
Cllr Paul Nickerson, ward member for Minster and Woodmansey and backer of the review, said he hoped it would examine how more affordable housing could improve outcomes in other areas.
Cllr Nickerson said:
“Having your own house or getting started on the property ladder, whether you own or rent it, is hugely important.
“It’s a cornerstone of health and wellbeing in local communities.
“The evidence shows there’s a business case for the council because it saves us having to pay to address the social and economic issues that arise from a lack of decent housing.
“When people aren’t housed properly it causes them a huge amount of stress, it leads to poor health from the worry it creates and it’s unfair for people to have that over their heads.
“As much as the East Riding has a good housing stock we’ve also got 6,000 people on the waiting list, and it’s growing.
“This country has a cost of living crisis as many other countries have, rents are going up creating more demand for affordable homes, which leads to chronic shortages.
“I think decent housing is a right, and I’m really looking forward to exploring these issues when the review panel begins its work.”
Cllr Nolan said he would also like the panel to look at what types of homes get build on new developments, such as bungalows for the elderly.
The Liberal Democrat said:
“Elderly people want to stay in places like Hessle, but the issue is we have a shortage of new bungalows being built.
“And the council can’t make developers build a certain amount of them, we don’t have the powers on planning to do that and developers tell us the cost of land is too high.
“So our group does support this review, but for these problems to be tackled we need changes in planning laws.
“The other issue that under successive governments there’s been a prejudice against local authorities building more council houses.
“We have a lot of money tied up in our housing accounts for repairs, but we can’t build new homes ourselves.
“There could be ways to address this by looking at green spaces on the edge of developments that could be opened up, but we need changes in legislation for that.”