Area cements its place at top of housing table
More new homes were brought to market in Maidstone in the 12 months to March than anywhere else in Kent.
The number built or converted across the UK in that period was the highest for 30 years, according to figures released by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
They show a net addition of 241,130 homes - approximately equal to one per cent of the nation’s housing stock, which is estimated to be 24.2m homes. Kent contributed three per cent of that total - with Maidstone leading the way among the 13 housing authorities. In total, 7,500 homes were added to the county’s housing stock. There were 1,146 new homes created in Maidstone, that was more than double the number created in Tunbridge Wells (553) and nearly three time as many as in Tonbridge and Malling (422). Nationally, there were 213,660 new build homes, plus 29,260 gained as a result of a change of use between non-domestic and residential, 5,220 additional homes were created by converting houses to flats, and 940 from other means such as caravans and houseboats.
They were offset by 7,940 homes that were demolished. Of those resulting from a change of use, 12,032 arose from the conversion of office buildings to flats across the UK, which has been happening at a particularly high rate in Maidstone. The council has recently been forced to take steps to protect the town’s remaining best quality office blocks by seeking to impose an Article 4 Order to remove the owners’ permitted development rights.
Although the council now has housing targets effectively imposed by central Government, Maidstone’ s high growth stems from a decision made in 2006, when the borough voluntarily signed up to the Labour Government’s new Growth Point scheme. In exchange for infrastructure grants, the council increased its housing figure to 10,080 2,000 more than required. The Government soon changed the rules. but subsequent housing targets have been extrapolated from that high base line figure.