Back in September 2023 Councillor Steve McKenna proposed a motion for the Council to produce a plan to deliver more genuinely affordable (socially rented) housing with the capital funds put aside for this purpose. The Executive responded over a year later congratulating itself with the few homes built – mainly temporary and emergency accommodation financed by government grants. They blamed the fact that office conversions and brownfield development sites which are less able to provide affordable housing had been most of what the market had to offer. They argued that the SUEs (sustainable urban extensions which are green areas previously part of the Green Belt but identified for housing) may have provided more affordable housing if they had been brought into play.
Instead, Councillor McKenna pointed out that the increasing number of people on the housing list and in temporary accommodation would like to know why more social housing had not been built despite it being the intention of the Council. In the last year housing has remained too expensive for many (average housing is 14 average earnings locally) and average rents increased by 16% in the past year.
Councillor Essex stated there had been a shortfall in delivery of affordable homes in the last four years (163 out of 248 for social rent, 347 out of 400 overall target for affordable homes. This is just 2/3 of the ‘council houses’ we had targeted to reduce the housing waiting list. This shortfall seems entirely because out of the additional allocation of £30 million to fund the delivery of affordable homes by the Council only £110,000 has been spent. This £30 million is mostly money received by the Council from housing developers called ’New Homes Bonus’ – which was introduced by the government when government grants were cut for council housing back in 2011. Most councils spent this on affordable homes but Reigate and Banstead Borough Council has been accumulating this in our savings account. Still unspent.
Cllr Essex asked when will the Council have targets and a plan to deliver social housing. Councillor Biggs replied that the new Development Plan should be available next year and that they would work with partners to bring projects forward. Councillor Lewanski said the housing allocation had been removed from the capital programme for accounting reasons.
This is clearly not delivering the increase in genuinely affordable homes that local residents need.
