Coventry to give away council-owned land for social housing

[dutchman]

Coventry's new housing strategy is unveiled today – including radical plans to give away council land for new affordable homes.

The city council has launched a consultation in to its draft Housing & Homelessness Strategy at a time when government funding for housing has been dramatically cut.

Coventry attracted £43.6million from the Homes & Communities Agency between 2008-20011.

This has been cut to £5.8million for the 2011-2015 funding round.

The 12-week public consultation will look at:

• handing over council-owned land to housing associations for free, as a subsidy to enable large developments of affordable, shared-ownership and social housing.
  
• selling council-owned land to developers at a discount if they agree to build high levels of affordable housing (which results in savings to the council in support costs and emergency accommodation)
  
• a build-now-pay-later scheme for developers buying council land. The city council would recoup the market value of the land only upon sale of the new homes.

It comes as new house building has dramatically slowed and many feel locked out of the housing market.

Coun Ed Ruane, cabinet member for housing, said: “The stark reality is that Coventry faces a real problem in terms of housing shortage and we need to do something about it.

“In this economic climate we haven’t got any money to build houses but we do have brownfield sites we want to develop.

“We have less options to deal with the problems with the housing market, so one of the big options is to use the land we have.”

Coun Ruane insists his focus is on the growing group of people unable to get a mortgage and left behind by rising private rents.

An independent Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SMHA) in to affordable housing showed Coventry will need 3,245 new affordable homes over the next five years.

It estimated the city’s population will grow by 17,600 by 2028 - from 316,900 up to 334,500.

Coventry has 71 per cent of properties in the lower value council tax bands A and B - compared to 44 per cent in England as a whole.

Below-average population growth of 4.6 per cent has also seen Coventry slip from the 11th to the 13th biggest UK city in the last decade.

“It’s important to look at the types of housing we have here,” Coun Ruane added.

“If we want to develop the city centre we also need to build aspirational housing and that balance has to be redressed.

“If we want the city to grow we need to be taking these sorts of measures.”