Affordable housing targets abandoned

Renaissance Loampit Vale: less than 20% are earmarked as affordable housing

Before getting into the nitty gritty of the Council’s aspirations and targets compared to the reality of what is actually being built, it could be useful to understand exactly what is meant by ‘affordable housing’.

The Department for Communities and Local Government defines social and affordable housing as:

“Affordable housing includes social rented and intermediate housing, provided to specified eligible households whose needs are not met by the market. Affordable housing should:

• meet the needs of eligible households including availability at a cost low enough for them to afford, determined with regard to local incomes and local house prices; and
• include provisions for:

1. the home to be retained for future eligible households; or
2. if these restrictions are lifted, for any subsidy to be recycled for alternative affordable housing provision.

Social rented housing is rented housing owned and managed by local authorities and Housing Associations, for which guideline target rents are determined through the national rent regime. It may also include rented housing owned or managed by other persons and provided under equivalent rental arrangements to the above, as agreed with the local authority or with the Homes and Communities Agency as a condition of grant.

Intermediate affordable housing is housing at prices and rents above those of social rent but below market price or rents, and which meet the criteria set out above. These can include shared equity (eg HomeBuy) and other low-cost homes for sales, and intermediate rent.”

Although Lewisham’s Private Sector Housing Strategy 2009–2014 sets out five key areas where the Council seeks to make an impact the key point on increasing housing supply states, “Lewisham is committed to providing enough of the right homes, in the right places, and to improve and increase the supply of new housing across all tenures.” With the Core Strategy Policy adding more detail to this in terms of specific targets:

3. Contributions to affordable housing will be sought on sites capable of providing 10 or more dwellings. The starting point for negotiations will be a contribution of 50% affordable housing on qualifying sites across the borough. This would be subject to a financial viability assessment.

4. To ensure a mixed tenure and promote mixed and balanced communities, the affordable housing component is to be provided as 70% social rented and 30% intermediate housing.

The Barratt Homes and London & Quadrant Housing Association development in Loampit Vale is one example of Lewisham Council waving through a planning application that tangibly fails to get anywhere the Council’s stated target of affordable housing. The developer states on its website that only 149 of 788 planned housing units are designated as affordable housing, less than 20% of the total and well below the Council’s target of 50%.

The Cannon Wharf development in Deptford was approved in June 2011 by the Lewisham planning committee on the basis of 20% affordable housing being part of a 696-flat development. The figures are equally bad for the proposed redevelopment of the Thurston Road Industrial Estate with approximately 22% of 406 homes earmarked as affordable housing (although the 22% was indicated in April 2011 and I recall 12% being the percentage in the development proposal approved in July 2011).

Lewisham Council recognises itself that there is an acute lack of affordable housing in the borough with many living in unsuitable homes, “The Strategic Housing Market Assessment (2007) reported that 33,922 households across the borough were assessed as living in unsuitable housing with 10% living in overcrowded conditions. There are over 17,000 households on the Council’s Housing Register and just under 2,000 households living in temporary accommodation. This potentially could increase as more residents find it increasingly difficult to afford their homes during this economic crisis.”

With such a need for affordable housing across the borough it seems strange that the Council appears to be back-pedalling on its worthy affordable housing targets.

This article originally appeared on AlternativeSE4.com, and is reprinted here with permission.