The Lancaster district is experiencing a crisis of affordability of housing, driven by failures of public policy at national level, but influenced by distinctive local factors. We had an open meeting In November 2024 to discuss these issues, and this page consists of opening remarks by the 3 Councillors presenting and then the questions, responses and dialogue which followed.
Affordable homes, Homelessness, & working with private developers
Caroline Jackson
Leader of Lancaster City Council
portfolio holder for housing
‘Affordable rent’ charges are defined as up to 80% of private market rents in the local area, whilst Council Housing rents are lower. There has been very little building of new properties for either, and right-to-buy, with increasingly high discounts to property values, has reduced the council’s housing stock for rent at affordable prices.
Two significant local factors in threatening homelessness are: section 21 evictions by private landlords and lack of availability of larger properties for families.
There are positive housing developments in the district. Lune Valley Community Land Trust in partnership with South Lakes Housing, ‘using government funding in an innovative way’, have completed twenty affordable homes to Passivhaus standards at Halton. The city council are leading on re-development of the Skerton school site, with funding from Homes England and the Public Works Loan Board, to replace sub-standard properties on Mainway on the neighbouring site.
Mainway itself has ‘huge potential’ as location for over two hundred new properties, but securing the best outcome in terms of affordability, under the present public policy regime, will require collaboration with private developers. The local authority lacks the funds and access to constructions skills to pursue fully independent development.
The city council ‘needs to learn to work with others’ to deliver new affordable homes.
finance, viability, standards, local plan and national policy
Tim Hamilton-Cox
portfolio holder for finance and property
The requirements for debt repayment for affordable housing schemes over fifty year periods preclude 100% social housing: rent income from the city council’s housing is too low to generate the necessary sums, and it is not permitted to subsidise the housing revenue account from other sources. In this context, the city council needs to be pragmatic, being ‘as ambitious as possible’ but acknowledging ‘an element of compromise’.
There are currently 237 Council Housing homes at Mainway and the aim is to ensure at least that number is maintained in the council’s own stock as redevelopment takes place, including on the Canal Quarter site. And where an affordable rent home is created, we need to think more about the total cost of occupation, not simply the headline level of rent.
Whilst new private housing developments typically ‘require’ 20-40% affordable units, delivery of these numbers in practice is more the exception than the rule, since developers can argue that development viability does not make the target figure achievable.
There is concern about housebuilding standards in the face of a climate emergency and high energy prices though there are examples of local good practice (e.g. Northstone’s Scotforth development which will see air-source heat pumps installed on all 70 homes, including the affordable units).
The new Local Plan for the district will not itself enable an increase in the number of affordable homes. National policy changes are needed. The government could introduce measures to help to increase the percentage of council properties built. Angela Rayner has spoken about introducing controls to require ‘fair, not excessive’ development land values, but this is likely to face strong opposition from vested interests. It was revealed on 21st November, that this has been dropped from Labour’s initial consultation in the release of the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
policy failures and opportunities and housing as homes not assets
Andrew Otway
Councillor for Scotforth East, newly elected
The July 2024 general election manifesto of the Green Party of England & Wales gave housing high priority. One indicator of the urgent need for more affordable, decent housing is that around 130,000 children are living in temporary accommodation.
For forty years, the housing policies of successive governments have embraced a dominant perspective of residential property as a personal ‘asset’, rather than as a reasonable personal expectation.
We need to construct genuinely affordable homes in sufficient numbers but also end the right-to-buy and put in place rent controls.
One approach to providing social housing can be to give local authorities the first option to buy some properties coming onto the market. And we advocate small-scale new developments accessible to existing local services.
Questions, responses, and discussion
1) What is the relationship between the city council and the universities in managing student housing demand? Can accommodation be freed up for families by building specifically for students? Is there evidence of demand for all the new student housing?
Councillors believe that there is insufficient communication between the city council and the city’s universities, and feel that the latter fail to share information on their future student numbers to enable any sort of joint planning.
Since 2021, there has been a general presumption in Lancaster against student conversions of existing houses to create HMOs (house in multiple occupation), but a recent appeal test case has been lost and this exposes South Lancaster particularly to risk of loss of more family houses for conversion. Green councillors favour construction of dedicated student accommodation, and acknowledge the decent quality of conversion of some former commercial properties (e.g St.Leonard’s House, the former Waring and Gillow building).
Contributors from the audience expressed some anger at ‘false claims’ made by Lancaster University in previous years that there was no intention to expand student numbers. In fact, over the past ten years, numbers have increased from around 12,500 to 16,500, currently with around 5,500 international students. The Lancashire County Council submission to government in support of the bid in to the Housing Infrastructure Fund in 2019 – £140m was awarded in 2020 and the scheme was branded ‘South Lancaster Growth Catalyst’ – included a commitment to deliver 2000 new rooms on the Lancaster University campus.
Question was raised about liability for council tax in shared students houses. For clarification, students are not liable for council tax, but non-student residents in shared house are.
2) What can be done about empty properties? Is there risk of localised housing market collapse in parts of the district, leading to houses falling into disrepair and disuse?
There are around 1,000 empty properties in the district. There are many reasons why properties may be empty for the short term, but of the total there are about 300 which remain stubbornly unoccupied. Owners are paying high council tax on empty properties, but vacancies still persist. The city council’s powers to intervene are limited to cases where adverse impacts of the vacancy for neighbouring properties can be proven.
On the housing market, Tim noted that there was ‘an all-time high number of houses for sale in Morecambe’, but not selling. From the audience, it was suggested that over-building of new greenfield developments can have the effect of undermining the market for older properties in some locations. One action could be for the city council to buy larger homes on the private market to house larger families but, without additional resources, the council has very little capital for this pupose.
3) Why are city council rents relatively low? Can people afford to pay private rents? And, what is the impact of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in the district?
Council rents are set on a formula which looks at other property rental costs in physical proximity. The comparator properties are often small terrace houses with low rent values. But, overall, private rents locally have ‘taken off ’ in the past three years.
The increase in LHA rates (the level up to which housing benefit is payable) introduced by the previous government results in city council rents falling below the maximum, whilst average local private sector rents are above the LHA rate, resulting in hardship where rent exceeds the LHA.
4) How can we create more affordable homes from existing properties or by developing brownfield sites? Can we build new house from kits to speed construction?
The city council appears to be taking a more lenient approach to conversion of vacant commercial properties to residential use: Queen Street, Morecambe, for example, where demand for retail premises has fallen away. Cumulatively, this sort of change of use may have considerable impact.
There are few remaining brownfield sites available in the district, though the new affordable housing in the Canal Quarter will be a significant gain.
Some new student developments, such as the student flats at Green Ayre, have been designed to be converted from student to other residential use, by removal of internal walls to meet the allowable minimum floorspace requirement for a private 1-bed flat if the student accommodation market were to soften.
The city council has already developed a small, innovative housing scheme at Alder Grove, using a panellised building system made in the North West of England. This offers fast and cheap construction of very well insulated homes, with a long life span projected, and which can point a way ahead for bigger schemes. In terms of eco-friendly practice, the city council will explore recovery and re-use of building materials from demolition at Mainway for the neighbouring development on the Skerton school site.
5) What do we make of the new government’s pressure for building on greenfield sites and expanding housing numbers?
Greenfield sites will be taken for new developments, and the district faces ‘disastrous housing targets’. Excluding student developments, 157 housing units were built in the district in 2023-24, but the new target figure proposed by the government in the recent consultation exercise is 698. [Since the meeting this was set at 619 homes per year.]
Green councillors believe that housing targets should reflect local housing need, and that securing more properties at affordable rents is the key priority. Government has insisted that a council’s housing target is based on a percentage of existing housing stock – not on evidence of local need.
More council house building is required. But a first measure can be to stop right-to-buy of new build social housing. At the Local Government Association, Greens are pressing for this, and also supporting a Liberal Democrat call for individual councils to have the option to stop right-to-buy in the areas.