Councils in low-income areas failing to deliver affordable housing

Because the government places an emphasis on the planning system to deliver affordable homes – usually by asking councils to require that these make up a percentage of developments, “it is only natural that low-value areas which are not attractive to developers will claim less of it,” the report said.

While over half of councils have set a minimum threshold for genuinely affordable housing using their local plans, only two per cent manage to achieve this.

From 2016 to 2017 in North West areas Blackpool, Knowsley and Pendle – where residents have some of the lowest income in the country – no new affordable housing was delivered through the planning system and less than 16 per cent of the requirement was met through other means. By contrast, the report found that the affluent area of Vale of White Horse delivered 96 per cent of its affordable housing using the planning system.

The report also found that some councils specify much lower numbers of affordable housing in their local plans than are needed, because they believe that setting a level in line with their true requirement would deter developers. This has included deprived areas setting a target as low as five per cent of new affordable housing, when the actual need was as high as 84 per cent.

The report outlines a number of recommendations, including the need to redefine the term ‘affordable housing’ to link affordability with income, rather than simply calculating a percentage of market rate.

Henry Smith, projects and policy manager at the TCPA, said: “Although housing costs are often lower in more deprived areas of the country, they’re still out of reach for many local people. This research shows that the housing crisis truly is a national problem and not only limited to major cities and those living in the South East.

“Councils are being put in a difficult situation where they’re forced to furiously attract development to meet a five-year target imposed on them by the government, but at the same time negotiate with developers to make sure what is actually affordable to people most in need.”

In order to “truly make a dent on these numbers”, he added, government would need to immediately increase grant levels for councils and housing associations “to enable them to deliver genuinely affordable homes”.