Home ownership – is
it the one size fits all solution?
This Government’s relentless pursuit of affordable
home ownership options leads me to ask whether I am misunderstanding the
issue. I can’t help thinking the
Government is being somewhat disingenuous in the presentation of the
issue. Their case being, people aspire
to home ownership, therefore we should provide homes for people to buy. The taxpayer will finance discounts in the
form of Right to Buy subsidies and 20% discounts on so called ‘starter homes’.
After 10 years of work in the field, I have carried out in
excess of 40 housing need surveys across Berkshire. Experience tells me that, yes, people certainly
do aspire to home ownership, it’s obvious, it’s in our psyche, and it is part of
British culture. But wanting a house, and being able to afford to buy one are
very different things. Just like wanting
to be ‘given’ a Council house and the likelihood of qualifying for one are very
different things.
In January the Homes and Community Agency announced that
funding applications for development grant to finance the building of affordable rent properties (80% of market rent)
are now closed. In other words the
Government is no longer providing any subsidy to finance the development of
rented tenure housing. However new
subsidies have been announced to allow for starter homes and the sale of existing
council and Housing Association properties through Right to Buy will be
financed through the sale of existing Council houses that become vacant being
sold on the open market.
So the truth of the matter has very little to do with
aspirations and everything to do with lack of money. And that’s okay, the Government is broke and
doesn’t want to publicly admit it. The
British economy must be seen as holding out against the current storm of
economic uncertainty, and if they publicly say ‘cuts have to happen and the
buck stops at housing’ that might raise political hackles at the very least.
So we will stop building houses to rent, we will provide
discounted homes to people who can afford them and our existing stock of more
affordable rented tenure homes will become a diminishing supply.
My concern is for those on average incomes and below
(remember average income is only about £25,000 in England) who will never be
able to afford to buy their own home, but will see their rents rise as rented
properties become ever more scarce.
Up-date on the
Housing & Planning Bill 2015
The Bill went through the House of Commons relatively unscathed
and has now had its second reading in the House of Lords where amendments have
been proposed to help protect affordable homes on rural exception sites from
Right to Buy and ensure some perpetuity and local connection for starter homes
on future sites.
The Bill is due to go to Committee Stage in the House of
Lords on the 9th of February, when the Bill will be reviewed line by
line. The proposed amendments do appear
to be challenging some of the rural concerns that have been raised.
Consultation on
proposals to change the National Planning Policy
The Consultation on proposals to amend the National Planning
Policy Framework has been extended until the 22nd of February
2016. If any of the issues about starter
homes and extensions to settlements for small development are of concern to you,
you should respond to this consultation.
I have responded on behalf of Rural Housing Enablers in
England setting out our particular concerns regarding:
- Proposals to include ‘Starter Homes’ in the
definition of affordable housing
- Proposals to allow development of ‘small’ sites
immediately adjacent to settlement boundaries.
This clause undermines the very definition of rural exception sites, and
provides significant scope for misapplication.
- Proposals to define ‘small’ sites as sites of
less than 10 units. We believe that a
small site should be defined according to local scale and according to local
authority defined thresholds.
- Use of brownfield sites for starter homes
‘exception sites’ we do not believe that the use of terminology is
appropriate. Starter homes, as currently
defined, are not affordable and are not for local people or controlled in
perpetuity. These are all elements that
are critical to exception sites.
- The use of ‘starter homes’ in rural areas should
only be to meet an identifiable local need in.
We are concerned about the wider use to meet needs of incomers where
there is unlikely to be any contribution to local infrastructure, and the homes
can be sold on the open market in 5 years.
- Should local communities through the
neighbourhood planning process have the opportunity to allocate sites for
starter homes in the Green Belt? Only
where the requirement is evidenced based and not at the expense of other more
affordable tenures that are rarely built in Green Belt areas due to high land
values.
If you would like to discuss either the Housing &
Planning Bill or the National Planning Policy Consultation with me, feel free
to contact me on: 0118 961 2000 or by email at: arlene.kersley@ccberks.org.uk
