Kirklees is “desperately short of houses” leading the local authority to accept that some ‘wily’ developers fail to deliver affordable housing.
Kirklees council’s policy requires housing developers to provide 20% affordable housing when they are building more than 10 homes. However, developers have been known to ‘wriggle out’ of this responsibility by producing a document that states that providing affordable housing would be ‘unviable.’
At a meeting of the council’s Economy and Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Panel, Cllr Matthew McLoughlin (Labour, Colne Valley) said to Cllr Graham Turner, Cabinet Member for Regeneration: “That 20% figure that we really want to get from developers on planning, how successful are we at dealing with these developers and getting that housing out of them? Because I know they’re wily so and so’s and they try and get out of this on the grounds of viability and all sorts and sometimes they don’t bother.”
Cllr Turner replied: “The answer is very, but there is quite often a question about viability. We live in an area where flat land is at a premium, so we have to develop on not-ideal sites. Quite often there are hills involved and steep banks, etc. which impacts on the viability. We always ask for a viability report.
“If a viability report comes back and says this is not viable, then we ask for an independent viability report and if that comes back and says it’s not viable then we have to accept that independent advice. In effect, very, but as I say, sometimes they’re not viable with 20%, and that’s due to the nature of the topography and what we can get for a building.
“This is not Hampstead, this is Kirklees. Our house prices are probably below national average, so there has to be a return for investors otherwise we won’t build anything.
“So sometimes, whilst it’s painful to say we’ll drop some percentage off, at least that way we get some houses because we are desperately short of houses in Kirklees, and we need to build more, so there’s always a trade-off, but where it’s viable, we’re very successful because it’s policy. They can’t build without.”
In November, Almondbury ward Lib Dem Councillors Alison Munro and Paola Davies spoke out against developers failing to deliver affordable housing. The councillors spoke in relation to the controversial plans for 68 homes on land off Penistone Road, Fenay Bridge which saw developer Newett Homes drop their affordable homes offering from 13 to zero.
Cllr Munro slammed the proposal as “wholly unacceptable” and added: “The Council must ensure that precedents are not set by developers attempting to wriggle out of their responsibilities at such a difficult time for Councils and residents, just so developers can increase their profits.”
Last year, a similar situation also arose around the contentious scheme for 41 homes at Clayton Fields. The application was approved subject to conditions, with developer Prospect Estates Ltd having to pay £326,000 as part of a Section 106 (S106) agreement. Part of this amount would cover the cost of affordable homes on-site.
However, the developer submitted a subsequent application to waive these costs, explaining that it had already accumulated £420k in fees from maintaining the site and other costs. They claimed that if they had to pay the S106, building the homes wouldn’t be worth doing.
At the meeting, the discussion around affordable housing was sparked by a presentation from John Buddle, Team Leader for Planning Policy, about a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). This related to both affordable housing and housing mix. He explained that SPDs are produced to add clarity to planning policies in the council’s Local Plan and were being brought for discussion at the scrutiny meeting following a round of consultation.
A major point raised by Mr Buddle was a proposed change to the mix of houses to be provided by developers. Previously, developers were asked to provide a percentage of one-bedroom houses. However, these were said to be increasingly undesirable for a number of reasons, including the fact that more and more people are working from home and need space to do so.
Due to this, rather than leaving one-bedroomed homes in their own category, the SPD saw them lumped together with two-bedroomed properties giving developers more flexibility. The percentage of one, two, three and four-plus bedrooms that are required, is tailored to the area of Kirklees in which a scheme is being built.
