Open market sites not providing enough affordable homes

It’s claimed planning authorities could see more affordable homes built if they work directly with landowners and housing associations and not big developers.

West Devon Borough Council’s overview and scrutiny committee heard that landowners would receive around 25 percent less for land if they sold it for social housing and not open market housing but the result would be better for the local community.

Russell Baldwinson of social housing provider LiveWest, which owns 36,000 homes for low cost rent in the south west, said there were more profits for shareholders if developers included less affordable housing on open market schemes.

Presently in West Devon developers are required to provide 30 percent of affordable homes on open market schemes of 11 dwellings or more. It’s a similar picture in other areas of Devon and Cornwall. 

But planning authorities will accept less if developers demonstrate that it is not viable.

Mr Baldwinson said developers usually won the day if they went down this road.

“I don’t agree with this,” he said. 

“As a planning authority you either have to defend your position around viability or identify sites that you can bring forward for affordable homes rather than open market sites.”

He said housing providers like LiveWest could use grants from Homes England to help built sites of between 20 and 70 low cost homes in smaller towns and larger villages where there were very few.

There are currently around 600 households on the housing list waiting for Band A to D properties in the borough.

Mr Baldwinson said there were now upwards of 100 applications when any homes became available: “It’s absolutely insane,” he said.

He commended West Devon for investing £50,000 into tackling its housing challenge by connecting landowners with communities to explore potential sites with a development partner.

He said most local authorities were not doing anything like this.

The ‘West Devon Housing Offer’ will provide financial support and practical advice on forming community housing groups and identifying housing need, as well as helping established groups to find suitable sites and pre-planning advice.

The authority is are joining forces with Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA), to provide 10 new affordable homes at Hessery View, Princetown.

DNPA have agreed to spend £173,000 on the joint housing development, using both its own, and WDBC land.

LiveWest is the main provider of socially rented homes in West Devon. It currently has around 1,800 and 60 shared ownedship properties.

The committee raised concerns over the increase in the number of homes that LiveWest had sold  – up from three per year in 2019 to 15 in 2023.

They were told that some homes were too costly to refit, make carbon neutral or difficult to let. 

It was cheaper to build new homes, which had increased from 10 a year in 2019 to 38 per annum in 2023.

But Cllr Ursula Mann (Ind, Tavistock North) said some areas were losing affordable homes as the replacements were being built in other parts of West Devon where they were deemed more sustainable.

“A lot of new homes are being built in Tavistock and Horrabridge, but some of the places disposed of are in South Zeal, those people have no relationship with those other communities  which are miles away,” she said.

The committee was told that LiveWest was now the seventh biggest supplier of social homes nationally.

Mr Baldwinson said the big issues for the company was meeting the 28 day target for addressing customer requests for repairs and keeping communal areas clean and maintained.

He said the company had spent around £100 million over the last 12 months on existing homes and £200 million on new homes.

He said they were spending twice as much responding to customer demand as they used to – £20 million – and was significantly over the budget: “We are playing catch up at the moment,” he said.