Affordable Housing

Part of Estimates Day — [1st Allotted Day] — Supplementary Estimates 2006-07 – in the House of Commons at 2:32 pm on 7 December 2006.

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Photo of Michael Wills Michael Wills Labour, North Swindon 2:32, 7 December 2006

I shall endeavour to follow the guidance on brevity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I should apologise in advance for my imminent absence from the Chamber as I am required to attend a Committee sitting. I wish to make a few remarks on how the affordable housing problem affects my constituency in Swindon; it is not just a problem for London and south-east, as we have heard.

Swindon desperately needs more affordable housing. More than 5,000 names are on the waiting list for social housing, and thousands more people, especially younger people, are unable to buy their own homes. The average price of a new home in the Swindon area is now more than £205,000. As a result, many young people in my constituency cannot afford to buy a home in the neighbourhood in which they grew up.

In our debate, we have heard much about the appropriate target for affordable housing. That is not the issue in Swindon; the issue in Swindon is whether the target that has been set will be met. In its local plan, Swindon borough council is committed to ensuring that 30 per cent. of all new housing is affordable, yet the borough council agrees new development after new development with levels of affordable housing either well below that or with none at all. Every development that is permitted without such a level of affordable housing is a wasted opportunity for my constituents. About 2,000 new houses are being built in Swindon every year; their total sales value is more than £400 million. The fact that, despite such a huge figure, so few affordable houses are being built is a blow for every one of my constituents who yearns to own their own home but cannot afford to do so.

It is imperative that that neglect of affordable housing is reversed, because Swindon borough council is about to embark on a massive expansion of housing in the town; the total could be about 35,000 houses, with a current market value of about £7 billion. How much worse will the situation be in terms of social division and all the wasted opportunities for home ownership if the council does not ensure that at least 30 per cent. of that huge expansion is affordable?

Sadly, there is, however, very little evidence that the council has grasped the urgency of the situation. Last year, it launched a flagship statement—50 promises to the people of Swindon—by which it said it wanted to be judged. Sadly, it did not commit itself in those 50 promises to meeting its own target of 30 per cent. of new houses being affordable; it committed itself to only 16 per cent. I have gathered thousands of signatures on petitions calling for the council to ensure that more affordable housing is built, but the council has ignored those petition signatures.

I do not know the reason for that neglect. Is it because the council values affordable housing less highly than other planning gains, or is it ineffective in its dealings with developers? However, there is certainly a widespread perception among my constituents, which I share, that the developers that have made, and are about to make, billions of pounds out of building houses in Swindon have given very little back. Whatever the reason for Swindon borough council's current failings on affordable housing, it must do better.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister and her Department on the new planning guidance. It is certainly a step in the right direction in encouraging local authorities to ensure that more affordable housing is built, but what more can Ministers do to force local authorities to meet the targets that they have set in their local plans? The new planning guidance does not spell out the penalties for such failings, and I will be grateful if she undertakes to spell out what they could be, so that local authorities know that they cannot go on ignoring—as Swindon borough council is—the needs of all those who depend on affordable housing to make a home for themselves and their families.

I would also be grateful if the Minister undertook to devise a timetable for such interventions, because the longer a local authority delays in meeting its targets the more difficult it will be for it do so. Every development that is agreed with levels of affordable housing below the target simply raises the hurdle higher for subsequent developments and makes it all the less likely that overall targets will be met within the time scales of the local plan. Everybody should be able to afford their own home and I ask the Minister to put measures in place to persuade Swindon borough council—if necessary to force it—to make sure that everyone in my constituency can do so.