The Belle Vue controversy and the ‘parking issue’ threatens to obscure many of the good things that Babergh has been doing in the recent past.
One has been highlighted in a press release today. Four years ago Babergh set a target to build or give planning permission for 700 affordable homes in the area by 2009, and this number has been well exceeded. This is the result of a great deal of effort by the councillors who work on the Housing Panel, and also by the relevant officers who are highly dedicated to the Council’s aim to provide decent housing for all in the area.
A harsher economic environment has now resulted in a problem however. 386 of these houses have been built, and another 80 or so are under construction, but the rest are ‘in the pipeline’, that is they have planning permission, but work on them has not yet started. Some of these will be developed by Parish Councils in co-operation with Babergh and housing associations, often on so called ‘exception sites’. However, the vast majority depend on the completion of private sector developments. At present the credit crunch means that development on new sites, even where planning permission has already been granted, has ground to a halt.
Furthermore, the prospect of adding more private sector-built homes to the pipeline looks bleak at present. In the case of Chilton Woods, for example, it was indicated by the developers at the last public meeting that planning permission for the first 14 or so houses would be applied for in September. It is now November and there is absolutely no sign of any application being made.
I am sure that this is a pattern that is being repeated all over the country. It seems clear to me that relying on the private sector to deliver public housing is only a policy that works during periods when housing markets are booming and the private sector can absorb what amounts to a hidden tax on its activities. One has to ask whether this is really a sustainable long term policy for the provision of social housing.
