What is the truth in Harrogate's complex picture of affordable housing

It’s an issue that has rumbled for most of the last decade only to burst into life recently in the letters section of the Harrogate Advertiser.
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Triggered by suggestions that affordable housing was still a problem despite years of house building, a senior member of Harrogate Borough Council wrote to this newspaper to answer the claims and set the record straight.

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Councillor Mike Chambers, cabinet member for housing and safer communities, said the evidence showed the council was, in fact, hitting the targets for affordable housing.

An example of new house building in Harrogate but is affordability still an issue?An example of new house building in Harrogate but is affordability still an issue?
An example of new house building in Harrogate but is affordability still an issue?

“Over the last three years, the council, through its Local Plan process, has delivered more than 1,000 affordable homes – the majority amongst new housing developments and communities,” said Coun Chambers.

And he continued: “On almost every housing site we have hit the targets for affordable housing contained in our Local Plan – 40 per cent provision on greenfield developments and 30 per cent on previously developed land.”

There’s no shortage of policies on affordable housing but has it solved Harrogate’s problems?

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There is no doubt that at the national level, house price affordability remains a political issue.

Complaints from charities persist that many first-time buyers still face being shut out of the market entirely while young couples now have to borrow bigger sums for longer if they are to have any chance of getting a foot on the ladder.

Last week saw the Office for National Statistics release a new report called Housing Purchase Affordability in which it said “house affordability ratios in England are worse than at any point since in 1999”.

Harrogate Borough Council first identified the scale of the district’s own affordability problem nearly five years ago.

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In 2018 it published its Housing and Economic Needs Assessment (HEDNA) setting out the housing need for the Harrogate District in terms of affordable housing.

The report said: “The HEDNA indicates there are high levels of need for affordable housing in Harrogate District, with an identified need of 4,400 affordable homes in the period from 2014-2035.”

The following year Harrogate Borough Council’s Housing Strategy 2019-2024 said the following: “Harrogate District faces significant housing challenges, and tackling them is a key priority for the borough council.

“With average house prices around 11 times the median annual income of people who work in Harrogate and average rents equally high, Harrogate is one of the most unaffordable places to live in England and the most unaffordable in northern England.”

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Whether Harrogate has turned out to be immune to the national trends in housing is a matter for scrutiny.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show, in the financial year ending in March 2021, the average home sold in England cost the equivalent of 8.7 times the average annual disposable household income.

In April of this year, the ONC said the average house price in Harrogate was £315,000, while the average annual salary sat at £32,778 – meaning house hunters needed 9.6 times their wage to buy to a home.

Harrogate Borough Council faced criticism this year over its plans for Maltkiln, a brand new village of 3,000 homes in the pipeline for the Hammerton and Cattal area.

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The council’s revelation that the number of homes to be classed as affordable is “anticipated to be within a range of 20 to 40 per cent” was attacked by Councillor Pat Marsh, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat group on the council, for flying in the face of its own Local Plan which sets an aim of 40 per cent.

But Coun Mike Chambers argues the rules themselves allow flexibility where there is “a genuine viability challenge preventing the delivery of that level”.

What’s more, he insists the availability of affordable homes in the Harrogate district - whether that’s new builds, rented or social housing - will continue to grow in the years ahead with the support of Harrogate Borough Council.

“The 1,000 affordable homes we have delivered over the last three years are a mix of social and affordable rented which typically range from 30 per cent to 70 per cent of market rents, as well as shared ownership housing.

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“This figure will continue to grow thanks to a number of new housing developments across the Harrogate district, as well as our own schemes to provide new opportunities for people to rent or own their own home.

“We are certainly on our way to ensuring people have the opportunity to rent or own their own home. And I hope this remains an ambition of the new authority which replaces us next year.”

Such is the complexity of affordable housing, the situation not only lacks any heroes but clear-cut villains, too.

At the heart of the situation, perhaps, lies the very definition of the term itself.

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Put simply, there is no universally agreed definition of affordable housing.

The Government’s definition in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) - which sets out government’s planning policies for England - means affordable housing in terms of buying, renting or sharing can be as high as 80 per cent of the average local market.

It also sets a minimum level as low as 10 per cent for affordable home ownership in each new major housing development.

So how close is Harrogate really to solving the problem of affordable housing? The answer may lie in the eye of the beholder - or householder.

What charities say about affordable housing

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Citizens Advice is just one of the local charities which sees the human cost of lack of housing problems up close.

Laura Holland, senior solicitor at Citizens Advice North Yorkshire, said the long-running problem is being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis.

“A lack of affordable housing has a significant and far-reaching impact on people’s lives across all aspects of the community,” she said.

People can find themselves unable to live in the communities they grew up in, unable to move for employment, living in over-crowding, experiencing relationship and family difficulties.

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“They end up making choices between heating and eating, experiencing health problems or finding themselves losing their homes and struggling to find a new home they can afford.

"The increasing costs of living crisis is only furthering these negative impacts. People are now finding themselves accruing debt just to get by day-to-day.”

At the national level, Shelter has long called for more truly affordable housing to be built.

It sees the root causes as the end of the post-war mass council house building programme and the Right to Buy policy of the Thatcher government in the 1980s.

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It blames what is has labelled “40 years of failure in housing policy” by successive governments for a “catastrophic decline” in social housing, leaving millions in insecure and unaffordable rented homes – with home ownership an impossible dream, and increasing numbers of people tipped into homelessness.

In 2019 it published a report called Building for our future: A vision for Social Housing in which it called for a “historic renewal of social housing”, with a 20-year programme to deliver 3.1 million.

Factfile on decline of inexpensive housing in Great Britain

A major report to the House of Commons in March 2022 concluded there was a “affordability crisis” in England.

It concluded that around 52,100 units of affordable housing were delivered in 2020/21.

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This was slightly lower than the 58,900 homes delivered in 2019/20, which may have been partly due to building disruption caused by the Covid pandemic.

From the Second World War up to 1980, Britain was building an average of around 126,000 social homes every year.

Last year, there were only 6,463 new social homes.

The golden age for council house building in Great Britain was in the 1950s when there was an average of 250,000 new local authority homes a year.

By 2004 this had dropped to just 140, although there was a slight rise to 3,280 in 2017.

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Factfile: The different ways Harrogate Borough Council intervenes on affordable housing problem

As well as the Local Plan adopted in 2020 with a target of delivering 637 new homes each year until 2035 - including a percentage of affordable properties - Harrogate Borough Council has a range of ways in which it is attempting to improve the situation.

Last month it revealed plans for social housing at seven sites in the Harrogate district which, it said, would make a “small but important contribution” to the affordable homes issue.

The plans include five shared ownership apartments at the former Cavendish House hostel on Robert Street in Harrogate and 14 homes off Halfpenny Close in Knaresborough for market, social rent and shared ownership .

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Although the total number of homes which may come to the seven sites is below 100, the council says the proposed scheme has to be judged in a wider context.

“The 100 homes are one part, albeit an important one, of us helping meet the housing need,” said Coun Mike Chambers, Harrogate Borough Council’s cabinet member for housing and safer communities .

“We want to do everything we can to ensure local people have the opportunity of a decent and affordable rented home in the Harrogate district. As we know getting a foot on the housing ladder in the Harrogate district can be a challenge.

“We also work hard to encourage properties owners to bring empty homes back into use.

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“Through our empty homes loan scheme property owners can apply for a loan to carry out essential repairs to their property and bring them back into use.

“In addition to building new homes we also have a programme to buy back ex-council homes we have been forced to sell at a discount under the government’s Right to Buy scheme.”

Whether this all adds up to the right result is a question open to a range of opinions.

In a sign of the council’s commitment, it has even set up its own company called Bracewell Homes in conjunction with Homes England.

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The aim? To acquire 40 high quality, fit for purpose shared ownership homes by 2024.

With the population of Harrogate District expected to increase to 170,300 by 2030, it’s a moot point whether the pressure on the district’s housing supply will disappear or not.