Housing finance

image of Canon's Walk, Thetford, developed with Flagship Housing Group

Providing new Affordable Housing

As well as providing housing advice and assistance to individuals and organisations, the Council also has a duty to calculate and try to meet the need for affordable housing throughout the district. We do this in partnership with housing associations and private developers through our ‘Enabling Role’.

You can contact us about developing affordable housing by calling 01362 656870 and asking for the Enabling Officer

Click on the links below for further information

The Council’s Enabling Role

It is the Council’s duty to use its various powers to aid other agencies, particularly housing associations and developers, to provide new affordable housing in the district.

The assistance we can offer falls into 3 main categories:

Financial Assistance
Mechanisms for the transfer of land/property
Use of the planning system to achieve affordable housing contributions

The Enabling section of the Council also undertakes the following tasks:

Supporting bids made by partner associations for developments of affordable housing
Producing the Council’s Housing Strategy (see our section on Housing & homelessness strategies for more information)
Working in partnership with a range of partners to identify opportunities to provide affordable housing
Monitoring the activities of Registered Social landlords (RSLs -housing associations and societies regulated by the Housing Corporation) to ensure good use of existing housing stock, allocations policies and other functions
Undertaking Housing Needs research

What is ‘Affordable Housing’?

Affordable housing has historically been defined a ‘social housing’ or ‘council housing’. Breckland is trying to move away from these definitions, as they do not reflect the range and scope of options available to provide homes that people can afford.

Breckland Council’s Local Plan defines affordable housing as;

‘ …encompassing both low cost housing and subsidised housing (irrespective of tenure, ownership – whether exclusive or shared) that will be available to people who cannot afford to rent or buy houses generally available on the open market’

Affordable housing in Breckland has been provided as:

Housing for rent, managed by Registered Social Landlords
Shared Ownership and Homebuy schemes, part owned by the occupier, part by the association, with the option to scale up to full ownership by the occupier. Click on the link to find out more about these schemes
Low cost market sale housing

The provision of affordable housing is targeted to meet the ‘Housing Need’ within the district.

What is Breckland’s ‘Housing Need’?

The Council has a Statutory duty (laid down in law) to monitor the level of housing need in the district.

In July 2002 a district wide Housing Needs Survey was undertaken in partnership with 3 other Norfolk authorities – Broadland District Council (mid Norfolk), Kings Lynn & West Norfolk District Council and South Norfolk District Council. Of all the authorities involved in the survey, Breckland was identified as having the highest levels of housing need.

The Housing Needs Survey made the following key findings:

7,344 dwellings of all types are required between 2001 – 2006 to meet housing need across the district.
85% of the above need to be rented, i.e. housing association, 14% shared ownership, and 1% low cost market sale properties
The main shortfall in all tenures is for small (1/2 bedroom) accommodation, however, the biggest shortfall of supply relative to demand is for 4 bedroom affordable accommodation.
The biggest concentration of need is in the market towns of Dereham and Watton.

The survey also identified the following information from the Social Housing Register (housing waiting list):

·As of 31 March 2005 3,456 households were registered on the waiting list for housing. Of these 544 were transfer applicants looking to move from one housing association property to another

The survey concluded that there is a need for 600 additional units of affordable housing per year. In 2002/03 the Council produced 34 new affordable housing units, but in the same year 79 units were lost to the Right to Buy, leaving a net loss of 45 units.

Another Housing Needs Survey is being conducted now in partnership with our sub-regional partners, North Norfolk District Council and King's Lynn & West Norfolk Council, along with a Housing Market Assessment which will set out the availability and affordability of housing in the district. The results will be compiled early next year, and will be made available to download from this site.

What Options does the Council have?

There is a range of options available to the Council to provide new affordable housing units. These options include:

Direct investment
Use of the Council’s own land and property holdings
‘ring fencing’ of Right to Buy receipts – approximately £1.2 million per year
Nominations to existing stock (‘re-lets’)
Attracting inward investment through bids to the Regional Housing Board
Use of planning policy

Planning Policy

Central Government recognises the contribution the planning system is able to make to the provision of affordable housing, and actively monitors local authorities’ progress in this area. Government Planning Circular 6/98 states ‘ that a community’s need for affordable housing is a material planning consideration’.

Subject to evidence of need this allows the Council to seek an element of affordable housing on qualifying sites through Local Plan Policy.

The new affordable housing policy, which was adopted 31 July 2003 increased the percentage of affordable housing sought from qualifying developments from 10% to 30% and;

Moved away from land contributions to built units
Introduced a new rural threshold of 5 units
Made recommendations for inclusions in the new Local Development Framework such as a reduction of the urban threshold

Progress on interim targets are being monitored.

What is the 30% Affordable Housing Target?

This is the requirement that 30% of the total number of built units on the site of all qualifying housing developments must be affordable.

The developer is required to transfer these affordable built units to a Registered Social Landlord (RSL). The RSL pays the developer a price for the units which recognises that there is no public subsidy available. RSLs are able to purchase the units by raising private finance based on the assumed rental income/sale prices from these units.

If a developer states they cannot afford to provide the required percentage of affordable housing units on a particular site the Council has a duty to consider the amount of contribution which should be sought, so as not to stifle development or avoid issues such as sites with a high level of contamination.

The Affordable Housing Policy states that independent verification of the costs of development should be sought (such as consideration by a Quantity Surveyor), and consideration should be given as to whether the development could support the required level of contribution. If it can not, the level of contribution that should be sought is considered. There are rare circumstances in which no affordable housing can be provided, and with the above information members can make an informed decision about what contributions should be sought in line with Breckland Council’s priorities. See our section on Housing Strategies for a free downloadable copy of the Affordable Housing Policy.

Circular 6/98 make specific reference to exceptional circumstances under which on site provision of affordable housing units may not be appropriate. This can occur in circumstances where;

·On site provision of the affordable housing target would be unrealistic for reasons of sustainability- i.e. on very remote sites such as barn conversions

·In circumstances where a 30% contribution would result in one unit being provided on site and the partner RSL has no local management capability

·Where an RSL could not raise private finance against the type of units to be provided on the site – such as mobile homes

In these circumstances a financial contribution, called a ‘commuted sum’ is sought from the developer to contribute towards the provision of affordable housing elsewhere in the district. The sum required is calculated on the basis of the Housing Corporation’s Total Cost Indicator framework (TCI), and takes into account the cost of providing the same level of off site provision as would be required on site, on the basis of purchasing existing units on the open market and bringing them up to the Housing Corporation standards.

What Type of Affordable Housing?

The Council determines what type of affordable housing to seek on individual sites by using the following sources of information:

Housing Needs Survey
Social Housing Register (housing waiting list) data
Existing housing stock profiles
Feedback from Parish and Town Councils
Negotiation with developers and partner RSLs

Rural Exceptions Sites

Breckland Local Plan makes provision for the development of sites for affordable housing outside the settlement boundary of villages in the district as ‘exceptions’ to planning policy.

This is dependent on:

Parish Council support
Proven local housing need which is unable to be met any other way
No suitable site for development exists within the settlement boundary
The site is well related to the settlement boundary
The Location of the site is considered sustainable
The development must be available for the provision of affordable housing ‘in perpetuity’, which restricts the ‘Right to Acquire’ for tenants
There must be RSL involvement

The Council is currently working with the Rural Housing Trust and the Rural Housing Enabler in partnership with a number of Parish Councils to enable affordable housing schemes in the district.