In March, the LGA predicted that 57,000 social homes would be lost by 2030 because councils have not been allowed to keep the full receipt from ‘Right to Buy’ sales to build replacements.
While the Government has more recently announced that local authorities can now retain 100 per cent of their Right to Buy receipts for 2022/23 and 2023/24 (rather than the 65 per cent or so we can currently retain), this debate remains pertinent.
Councils that once had vast stocks of housing have seen these diminished (more than halved, in our case) by Right to Buy.
Local authorities may have taken a risk-averse approach to development, borrowing and debt, and perhaps have prioritised avoiding this rather than topping up retained receipts to increase their stock levels.
At Ashford, in Kent, we do things differently. For a number of years, we believe we have led the way in using our retained one-for-one monies to deliver much-needed homes.
This has been through a dedicated ‘street purchase’ programme that sees our officers acquiring homes on the open market, often in areas where we have stock; and sometimes homes that were sold through Right to Buy, and about which we have detailed knowledge of their maintenance and condition.
We use the one-for-one funding strategically, focusing previously on buying one and two-bed homes that enable those in temporary accommodation to move into a more sustainable tenancy – in turn, making our temporary accommodation more resilient and saving us money in third-party, nightly paid accommodation costs.
Currently, we are using the cash more cautiously, checking the level of borrowing in our housing revenue account, but using the receipts to buy larger homes (three and four-plus bed homes), which seldom come forward through Section 106 (s106) agreements. These house larger families on our waiting list for whom the wait is often really long.
Having this delivery mechanism is increasingly important, as we are one of more than 70 local authority areas currently affected by ‘nutrient neutrality’ issues (where new houses cannot be built because they would add to nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus that are already polluting local rivers).
It can create lettings chains to ensure we are making the best use of our existing stock at a time when we are not able to get on site ourselves.
Since 2017-18, we have lost 140 homes to Right to Buy.
We have delivered 127 homes directly through one-for-one acquisitions in the same period. A further 124 homes have been bought off-plan or through stepping in to buy s106 homes where registered providers of housing are unable or unwilling to buy.
We have also delivered 140 homes through our affordable homes programme, which has supplied dementia-friendly homes for independent living, as well as more ‘general needs’ stock.
With a delivery programme stretching out over the next decade and beyond, totalling more than £100 million, and with further land acquisitions being secured all the time, Ashford is in a strong position to demonstrate how it is blazing a trail for others to follow and how the loss of Right to Buy homes needn’t mean dwindling stock numbers.
We have also secured LGA Housing Adviser programme funding to see how we can accelerate affordable housing delivery across not just our borough, but the boroughs across East Kent too.
- For more information, please visit www.ashford.gov.uk
