A scheme to build an estate solely of affordable housing in Northallerton has been warmly welcomed by a council which has voiced frustration over the difficulties in getting below market value properties built.
Members of Hambleton District Council’s planning committee said Broadacres Housing Association’s proposal for 72 homes in Northallerton would help more local people be able to afford to live in the town where they were brought up, work, or have family connections.
The development, which will include 57 two-bedroom homes, will be the largest affordable housing estate in the district, where councillors have claimed efforts to provide cheaper homes are being strangled by Government policies which are being circumnavigated by developers, a council has said.
Last year the authority, which works towards a 40 per cent affordable housing target on developments of more than 15 properties, released figures showing in the last quarter of 2017 it met just 52 per cent of its target of 120 below market value homes.
Councillors for the rural district said the Government policy of allowing no affordable housing on developments of ten or less properties had “destroyed the provision of affordable housing in villages”.
They also pointed towards a loophole at the stage of the planning process where developers of large and medium-sized estates are allowed to claim the requisite number of below market value properties would make their schemes unviable, due to costs such as clearing contamination or building roads.
The planning committee heard the scheme was being funded using a Homes England grant, and would bring “a significant amount of inward investment into the district”.
Officers said 28 of the homes on the site on 1.8-hectares of agricultural land off Thurstan Road would be for shared ownership and 44 for rent.
They added grant funded shared ownership housing could not be subject to local lettings restrictions, which meant it would not be possible to protect that element of the development for local residents.
Nevertheless, they said, as 61 per cent of the homes would be for affordable rent with a local letting requirement “this mitigates the impact of unfettered shared ownership homes on what could have otherwise been a market housing development”.
After the meeting, the committee’s chairman, Councillor Peter Bardon said the increase in affordable housing the development would bring represented a significant “boost not only for Northallerton, but Hambleton district as a whole”.
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