Councillor Denis Healy is calling on East Riding of Yorkshire Council to make sure that property developers build the right proportion of affordable homes.
Figures revealed show that developers are being allowed to build too many expensive executive homes, whilst falling short of the Council’s targets for smaller, more affordable properties.
Cllr Healy said:
“The Council’s local development plan for the next 15 years contains something called the Strategic Housing Market Assessment Target, which is supposed to ensure that the right proportion of smaller and larger houses are built.”
“Developers like to build large expensive houses which are more profitable, rather than the smaller ones that many people need. However, the Council has a responsibility to ensure that new house completions are in correct proportion to those stated in the Strategic Market Assessment Target.”
“As a member of the Council’s Environment & Regeneration sub-committee, I was recently presented with figures which showed that across the East Riding, there was a significant over provision of larger four bedroom properties, and undersupply of two bedroom properties, when compared with local needs as set out in the Strategic Housing Marker Assessment.”
“I therefore decided to investigate further, to find out how this applied to the new estates in Molescroft, north of Woodhall Way and north of Driffield Road, and I asked officers to provide me with figures relating to these two estates.”
“There are 323 houses on these two new estates, and only 22% of them are one or two bedroom houses. This falls way short of the Strategic Housing Market Assessment for Beverley which says that 62% of new houses in Beverley should be one or two bedroom. By contrast, 39% of the houses on these two developments contain 4 or more bedrooms, against the market needs assessment of only 9%.”
“Over development continues to be a major issue in Beverley with 3300 new houses to be built by 2029, and I am concerned that development is being driven by the requirements of the house builders rather than the needs of the area which have been clearly set out in the local plan.”
“Many young people want to continue living in the Beverley area, and they are finding it increasingly difficult to get a foothold onto the property ladder. Local councillors have a responsibility to ensure that the Council is building the houses needed by local people, and that we are not dictated to by property developers.”
“I will certainly be doing what I can to hold the Council to account over this, and raised the issue today at the full Council meeting with the Council Leader. I want an explanation as to why planning officers are not insisting that the Strategic Housing Market Assessment Targets are imposed when planning applications are made.”
