The Yorkshire and Humber Assembly

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Providing Affordable Housing

Providing affordable housing was highlighted as a key implementation priority for 2008/09 and it is proposed to remain a priority for the forthcoming year too.

The Headlines

In the Region in 2007-08:

  • 288,000 households were on local authority waiting lists, 13.5% of all households, the highest of any region.
  • the Yorkshire and Humber Plan indicates that between 30-40% of all new homes should be affordable, that’s at least 6,678 each year based on the RSS annual target for new homes.
  • but, in 2007-08, the Annual Monitoring Report showed that we completed 2,370 additional affordable homes, just one third of the lowest target figure.

What are we doing about it?

The Regional Housing Board have prepared an Action Plan which identifies the delivery of affordable housing as a key area of concern. Funding has been put in place to help address this.

The Regional Assembly, Government Office and the Homes and Communities Agency have met regularly to identify areas where they could help improve delivery. They have collectively agreed the following priorities:

  • A need for greater capacity in local authorities to be facilitated initially through an on-line toolkit or guide
  • A need for better monitoring

The Affordable Housing Delivery Guide

The Regional Agencies, sub-regional housing partners and local authority representatives came up with a range of issues which the guide could seek to address.

  • The Assembly commissioned ARC4 and David Cumberland consultants to help prepare the guide. They consulted Local Authority housing and planning officers in December 2008 on the scope of the guide. The results of that scoping exercise and initial structure of the guide are contained here.
  • We are well on with preparing the guide and a draft should be available for consultation in April. If you would like to receive a copy of the guide to provide comments then please contact Martin Elliot at the Assembly on 01924 331 555.
  • Once completed a link to the guide will be provided on this web-page.

Future Work

This coming year will focus on improving how we collect data on affordable housing. Government Office are currently engaged with Local Authorities on determining Local Area Agreements for affordable housing delivery.