Campaign for Rural England: Affordable housebuilding halved
Staff Writer |
Ahead of Thursday’s general election, countryside lobby group the Campaign for Rural England (CPRE) has revealed that the proportion of affordable homes being built in the countryside has halved in the past five years.
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Looking back at two years of Conservative rule, and at the last three of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, CPRE said there is “A growing crisis of affordable housing provision in many rural areas.â€
Figures publicised by CPRE, which were originally released by the government, show that in 2011-12 (under the Coalition government which took power in 2010), 35% of new dwellings in shire districts and unitary authorities were deemed to be affordable; in 2015-16 (under the Conservatives), this had decreased to just 16%.
The 2015-16 figures represent a significant drop-off, especially as they come after a slight recovery in affordable house building in the last full year of the Coalition government.
CPRE’s research also shows that just five of the 15 ‘least affordable’ districts outside London have met their most recent lowest affordable housing targets.
The Government data also reveals which councils have provided the lowest proportions of affordable housing.
Over the past five years, an average of just 6% of the new housing in Oadby & Wigston, Leicestershire, has been affordable.
In Poole, which aims for 40% affordable housing, just 7.7% of completed homes have fulfilled the criteria.
As councils no longer receive direct funding for affordable housing, and, until recently, very few councils have been building homes, the majority of affordable homes being built in Britain have been erected as concessions by developers; most recently built affordable homes in rural Britain have been included as conditions for developers gaining planning permission for other projects.
Even so, according to CPRE, a pattern has emerged whereby developers use viability assessments to avoid building the requisite proportion of affordable homes as part of a development.
In Horsham, Sussex, an American real estate investment trust recently told the council that a viability study demonstrated its development could not provide more than half the council’s 35% affordable housing target.
Faced with the prospect of an appeal, or seeing the development cancelled, the council waved through the 2,750-home and business park development, accepting the developer’s assessment.
Recent research from the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) shows that councils are increasingly concerned about affordable housing and the effect that viability assessments have on providing it.
In the TCPA’s study, over 60% of councils surveyed agreed that the viability test set out in the National Planning Policy Framework has hindered their ability to secure sufficient social and affordable housing to meet local needs. ■