TVBC and Shelter clash over homes ‘shortage’ (From This is Hampshire)

TVBC and Shelter clash over homes ‘shortage’

10:38am Friday 19th March 2010 in Romsey

TEST Valley’s housing chiefs have slated a national charity which accused the authority of not providing enough affordable homes.

Housing charity, Shelter, claims Test Valley Borough Council is providing just 13 per cent of the affordable homes required by the area each year.

Shelter’s boss, Campbell Robb, said: “These figures are extremely worrying. With 3,030 households on the housing waiting list in Test Valley, the council must work far harder to ensure more desperately-needed affordable homes are provided if it ever hopes to meet the housing needs of the local population.

“Independent experts commissioned by the council say 569 new affordable homes need to be built each year in Test Valley, but an average of only 77 have been delivered in the last year.”

Mr Robb said the recession had created a difficult climate for house building, but TVBC had to make the provision of affordable housing a “long-term top priority.”

The TVBC were ranked 207th out of 323 English local authorities in the Shelter housing league table.

Hitting back at Shelter’s report, Test Valley’s cabinet spokesperson for housing, health and communities, Sandra Hawke, accused the charity of being irresponsible and unrealistic.

“Shelter is just looking at basic statistics, without any effort to explain the situation behind them. Their league table is irresponsible, it doesn’t paint an accurate picture at all. The figures they use are just a snapshot of the number of properties available during the year and the number on the waiting list at a particular time,” said an angry Mrs Hawke.

She admitted that demand for affordable housing was greater than supply, but claimed the authority was “...doing very well, despite the recession, in attracting funding and ensuring major housing sites proceed”. Chairman of the Local Government Association’s environment board, Gary Porter also attacked Shelter’s findings.

“It is depressing that an organisation which represents itself as a serious advocate for better housing policy is using flawed research to lay the blame for the shortage of affordable housing at councils’ doors. Council up and down the country want to build and refurbish homes that families need.

A serious plan for increasing the number of affordable homes needs to address the barrier which stand in the way of councils building the homes they know people need. Town halls have been campaigning for years to change the way council housing is funded to allow them to build hundreds of thousands of much needed homes and have outlined proposals this week that could help councils deliver up to 500,000 affordable homes.”

Shelter www.shelter.org.uk/housingleaguetabledate