Skip to main content
Cheltenham, Gloucester and Tewkesbury Strategic and Local Plan Home

Affordable homes

From "Type, size or tenure of new homes"

Go to the project

Today’s young people will soon be looking for jobs and starting families of their own, without necessarily wanting to move away from their roots. They will need somewhere  to live, work and send their own children to school in a way that if affordable. In June 2023  the Office for National Statistics reported that the average UK house price was £288,000, well beyond the reach of many. 

The affordability of rural housing is a particular challenge with recent analysis by the National Housing Foundation reporting that social housing waiting lists grew by 31% in the three-year period up to 2022, compared with a 3% increase in urban areas. 

How can the SLP ensure that there are enough affordable homes for people?

Comments(2)

Commenting is not possible because this project is currently not active.
Most recent comments have loaded.
Profile of James Nicholson-Smith
Posted by:James Nicholson-Smith
2 years ago
The affordability ration for the area is 8 when the target is 4. I believe this value of an average dwelling compared to average earnings. The suggestion that simply building more houses will reduce prices and therefore the affordability ratio is nonsense. The definition of an "affordable home" includes one that is 20% below the market price. I dont know how local that comparison is but suspect its not policed either. I suspect if there are 10 houses on the developmnet, they are priced above the local average anyway because they are new and 2 of the houses are smaller and 20% below the other 8 to tick the box that they are affordable. If anyone disagrees - ask yourself this question - are the banks are going to lend money to people to buy homes that will go down in value? The more workable strategy is for planning policy to give preference to projects - especially city centre brownfield regeneration to housing association funded developments where there will be wide ranging property types that are affordable ie 4 x average earnings or the rental equivalent. These need to serve the workforce that we need in the area that the government is not willing to pay decent salaries to.
    Profile of Jean Jones
    Posted by:Jean Jones
    2 years ago
    One of the problems is that a lot of older people are living in family sized houses when the family have left. In a democratic state you cannot force people to move but by providing more suitable accommodation folk might be persuaded to down size. This links in to provisions for the elderly and handicapped.

      Share

      Posted by

      Profile of SLP TeamSLP Team on 15 December 2023

      Current status

      received

      Tags

      Housing