You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
‘We can tackle the housing crisis with an extra £100m’
Stoke-on-Trent City Council is hoping to borrow around £100m to fund its housebuilding efforts now the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) cap is being lifted. But, as Randy Conteh explains, demand is outstripping supply and housing associations must play their part
The prime minister’s recent announcement to remove the HRA borrowing cap is welcome news.
We have been working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government since early 2017 to consider what is needed to facilitate a greater level of development.
By scrapping the borrowing cap, we would potentially be able to increase our building rate – adding to an already rapidly growing portfolio of new social and affordable homes for residents.
By creating high-quality and affordable accommodation we are helping to raise the quality of life for residents.
We believe this is an important factor in contributing to a reduction in the impact on services by lowering health inequalities and physically regenerating our city.
READ MORE
Stoke-on-Trent City Council already has an ambitious housing growth programme – designed to address the needs of the area and the quality of the offer – which is backed up by a strong record of delivery.
As part of this, we have an active new build affordable homes programme, delivering around 400 new homes over the next three years through the HRA – and which does not include our new build programme through our housing company, Fortior Homes.
The capacity for development and regeneration has now been maximised within the current HRA business plan, so it is clear that to undertake further work and realise our full ambition, additional borrowing is required.
In Stoke-on-Trent there are around 18,200 council homes and we are selling roughly 150 homes each year through Right to Buy.
With approximately 2,300 people registered on the council’s waiting list, this situation needs to be improved. Demand is currently significantly outstripping the number of social and affordable properties becoming available.
Our plan would be to build 200 homes a year for the next five years from 2020. To achieve this, we would need to borrow around £100m.
The current Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment has identified capacity for 7,939 new homes across 91 sites on council-owned land. We believe in leading from the front, creating the best quality housing for our residents, and housing associations and other organisations need to play their part too.
“Our plan would be to build 200 homes a year for the next five years from 2020.”
At Stoke-on-Trent City Council we have the housing need, ambition, land and the expertise to continue a significant programme of new build properties. Allowing further HRA borrowing headroom increase would enable this programme to proceed, making a valuable contribution to tackling the housing crisis.
The council has formally responded to the Right to Buy consultation and would support greater flexibility within the current scheme, such as allowing five years to spend receipts on one-for-one replacement instead of the current three.
We would also support using a greater percentage of receipts to fund new affordable developments with the ability to mix with a Homes England grant, thus maximising the number of new affordable homes.
Randy Conteh, cabinet member for housing, Stoke-on-Trent City Council
