Council ‘bucks the trend’ on homes

HOUSING: A Yorkshire local authority is bucking the trend of “managed decline” with publicly owned housing stock, cabinet members said, emerging as one of the country’s most prolific builders of new council homes.

We should be proud, but we need to kick on and do more. Coun Dominic Beck, Rotherham Council.

A YORKSHIRE local authority is bucking the trend of “managed decline” with publicly owned housing stock, cabinet members have said, emerging as one of the country’s most prolific builders of new council homes.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council is pumping £50m into projects which will see about 440 new homes built, including 250 council homes. It is expected to account for five per cent of the entire new local-authority social housing stock in England in the year ahead.

The council’s cabinet spokesman for housing Coun Dominic Beck said it was as a result of an ambitious plan for change.

“We have put our money where our mouth is,” he said.

“Local authorities have said for years they are doing as much as they can.

“Our plan over the next four years is to spend more than £50m, building 440 new homes, with more than 200 new council houses.

“The rest will be other affordable housing options, like sharec ownership,” he added.

The policy has seen Rotherham buck the national trend for a “managed decline” of council housing stock, as the Government right-to-buy policy, introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and made more attractive to sitting tenants several years ago, continues to bite into the numbers of homes left in council control.

Last year Rotherham lost 158 of its rented homes through right-to buy sales, which it has no ability to control.

The current council took the view that it was better to take action than to see council housing dwindle further and allowing the private rented sector to take up more of the market.

Rotherham’s success is based on the fact that the authority holds substantial amounts of land, Coun Beck said, including a myriad of small plots at locations across the borough and enough cash reserves to make initial investments.

They have found private developers keen to work with the authority, building some homes to bolster the housing stock, while the other side of the deal allows the developers to build for the open market.

Profits from that arrangement are then used to finance the next stage of the council housebuilding programme, Coun Beck said, resulting in a rolling arrangement which hopefully should be self-financing.

“In Rotherham last year we lost 158 houses through right-tobuy and that has been increasing year on year, owing to the Government making the discounts more favourable five years ago,” said Coun Beck. “What we didn’t want, and still don’t want, is to manage decline. That is what many in the sector are doing.

“We had an opportunity. Now we have got this going it is not the end game, we will drive things forwards.”

Work in Rotherham has attracted funding from the national agency Homes England and other sources, but the intention is to make the cycle of developments sustainable within the council’s own finances.

“We have sites on every corner in Rotherham,” said Coun Beck. “Sometimes we have to pinch ourselves. We should be proud, but we need to kick on and do more.

“House-building can be quite controversial but building council houses is very popular.”