Agenda item

The Council has agreed capital funding to support the delivery of affordable housing.  This report provides the indicative Affordable Housing Programme for 2014-15 and the evolving pipeline programme for 2015-18 together with an effective and robust delegated authority for funding approval decisions

Councillor Eleanor Jackson in a statement [a copy of which is attached to these Minutes as Appendix 3 and on the Council’s website] said that this subject and a version of this paper came to the meeting of the PDS Panel for Housing and Major Developments on 27 May 2014, where it was generally welcomed by panel members.

This Panel was a good place to discuss the proposals because the measures recommended clearly needed to be seen in the wider context of housing delivery in Bath and North East Somerset, and the difficulties experienced in a number of the current major projects in getting adequate amounts of affordable housing built.  Councillor Jackson suggested that the Resources PDS Panel should scrutinise this matter.

Amanda Leon (Radstock Action Group) in a statement [a copy of which is attached to these Minutes as Appendix 4 and on the Council’s website] said that Linden Homes were clear that they were not going to pay the proposed S106 agreement due to their responsibility to their stakeholders and asked why the Council would have to pay for this out of taxpayers money.

Councillor Dave Laming in an ad hoc statement said that the title might be misleading.  Not many people in the area could afford houses so the Council should be looking to invest into homes, like mobile homes.

Councillor Paul Crossley asked if all Cabinet Members had read a Public Interest Test circulated as an appendix to the report.

All Cabinet Members confirmed that they had read the Public Interest Test.

Councillor Paul Crossley asked if all Cabinet Members agreed that appendix 1 of the report be exempt from publication.

All Cabinet Members agreed.

Councillor Paul Crossley informed the meeting that if any of Cabinet Members would want to refer to information from exempt appendix, then he would exclude the public from the meeting and move into exempt session.

Councillor Tim Ball introduced the item by saying that paper had been about homes for people.  Councillor Ball said that there had been partnership work across the authority, with different housing associations, to ensure there were affordable homes and social housing.  Councillor Ball also said that he was pleased that Councillor Jackson welcomed the report and assured that appropriate Scrutiny would be taking place.

Councillor Ball informed the meeting that we were the only authority in the country to hit its target on delivery of affordable homes.  610 affordable homes had been delivered within four year programme across the district.  Councillor Ball congratulated officers and thanked them for the hard work they put in this report.

Councillor Ball highlighted that there were quite a lot of details in the papers on how the Council would deliver affordable housing, including S106 details.

Councillor Ball moved the proposals.

Councillor Paul Crossley seconded the proposal. 

Councillor Crossley thanked Councillor Jackson for her comments on this report and commended her commitment towards housing for disadvantaged and excluded groups.

Councillor Crossley said that the Council would be committing a significant capital budget to provide homes.  The most substantial problem was the cost of the land in B&NES, which makes building of the affordable homes extremely difficult. 

Councillor Simon Allen said that building homes for people was one of the most important things that this Council had been doing.  Councillor Allen also said that this was a vital document which would be interrelated wiithfuture S106 agreements.

On a motion from Councillor Tim Ball, seconded by Councillor Paul Crossley, it was

RESOLVED (unanimously)

(1) To APPROVE the allocation of £1.015m Affordable Housing Capital budget for 2015-18, as detailed within Appendix 1; and

(2) To DELEGATE the Director of Place, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Homes & Planning, to approve allocations of Affordable Housing Grant and Commuted Sums for developments falling within the scope of the indicative 2014-15 programme.

Councillor Paul Crossley closed the meeting at this point and read out some of tweets that arrived during the duration of this meeting.