What is the truth in Harrogate's complex picture of affordable housing

Harrogate Council hits back in battle of flower beds and says it was anything but 'vandalism'

Triggered by suggestions that affordable housing was still a problem despite years of house building, a senior member of Harrogate Borough Council wrote to this newspaper to answer the claims and set the record straight.

Councillor Mike Chambers, cabinet member for housing and safer communities, said the evidence showed the council was, in fact, hitting the targets for affordable housing.

“Over the last three years, the council, through its Local Plan process, has delivered more than 1,000 affordable homes – the majority amongst new housing developments and communities,” said Coun Chambers.

And he continued: “On almost every housing site we have hit the targets for affordable housing contained in our Local Plan – 40 per cent provision on greenfield developments and 30 per cent on previously developed land.”

There’s no shortage of policies on affordable housing but has it solved Harrogate’s problems?

There is no doubt that at the national level, house price affordability remains a political issue.

Complaints from charities persist that many first-time buyers still face being shut out of the market entirely while young couples now have to borrow bigger sums for longer if they are to have any chance of getting a foot on the ladder.

Last week saw the Office for National Statistics release a new report called Housing Purchase Affordability in which it said “house affordability ratios in England are worse than at any point since in 1999”.

Harrogate Borough Council first identified the scale of the district’s own affordability problem nearly five years ago.

In 2018 it published its Housing and Economic Needs Assessment (HEDNA) setting out the housing need for the Harrogate District in terms of affordable housing.

The report said: “The HEDNA indicates there are high levels of need for affordable housing in Harrogate District, with an identified need of 4,400 affordable homes in the period from 2014-2035.”

The following year Harrogate Borough Council’s Housing Strategy 2019-2024 said the following: “Harrogate District faces significant housing challenges, and tackling them is a key priority for the borough council.

“With average house prices around 11 times the median annual income of people who work in Harrogate and average rents equally high, Harrogate is one of the most unaffordable places to live in England and the most unaffordable in northern England.”

Whether Harrogate has turned out to be immune to the national trends in housing is a matter for scrutiny.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show, in the financial year ending in March 2021, the average home sold in England cost the equivalent of 8.7 times the average annual disposable household income.

In April of this year, the ONC said the average house price in Harrogate was £315,000, while the average annual salary sat at £32,778 – meaning house hunters needed 9.6 times their wage to buy to a home.

Harrogate Borough Council faced criticism this year over its plans for Maltkiln, a brand new village of 3,000 homes in the pipeline for the Hammerton and Cattal area.

The council’s revelation that the number of homes to be classed as affordable is “anticipated to be within a range of 20 to 40 per cent” was attacked by Councillor Pat Marsh, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat group on the council, for flying in the face of its own Local Plan which sets an aim of 40 per cent.

But Coun Mike Chambers argues the rules themselves allow flexibility where there is “a genuine viability challenge preventing the delivery of that level”.

What’s more, he insists the availability of affordable homes in the Harrogate district - whether that’s new builds, rented or social housing - will continue to grow in the years ahead with the support of Harrogate Borough Council.

“The 1,000 affordable homes we have delivered over the last three years are a mix of social and affordable rented which typically range from 30 per cent to 70 per cent of market rents, as well as shared ownership housing.

“This figure will continue to grow thanks to a number of new housing developments across the Harrogate district, as well as our own schemes to provide new opportunities for people to rent or own their own home.

“We are certainly on our way to ensuring people have the opportunity to rent or own their own home. And I hope this remains an ambition of the new authority which replaces us next year.”

Such is the complexity of affordable housing, the situation not only lacks any heroes but clear-cut villains, too.

At the heart of the situation, perhaps, lies the very definition of the term itself.

Put simply, there is no universally agreed definition of affordable housing.

The Government’s definition in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) - which sets out government’s planning policies for England - means affordable housing in terms of buying, renting or sharing can be as high as 80 per cent of the average local market.

It also sets a minimum level as low as 10 per cent for affordable home ownership in each new major housing development.

So how close is Harrogate really to solving the problem of affordable housing? The answer may lie in the eye of the beholder - or householder.

What charities say about affordable housing

Citizens Advice is just one of the local charities which sees the human cost of lack of housing problems up close.

Laura Holland, senior solicitor at Citizens Advice North Yorkshire, said the long-running problem is being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis.

“A lack of affordable housing has a significant and far-reaching impact on people’s lives across all aspects of the community,” she said.

“People can find themselves unable to live in the communities they grew up in, unable to move for employment, living in over-crowding, experiencing relationship and family difficulties.

“They end up making choices between heating and eating, experiencing health problems or finding themselves losing their homes and struggling to find a new home they can afford.

"The increasing costs of living crisis is only furthering these negative impacts. People are now finding themselves accruing debt just to get by day-to-day.”

At the national level, Shelter has long called for more truly affordable housing to be built.

It sees the root causes as the end of the post-war mass council house building programme and the Right to Buy policy of the Thatcher government in the 1980s.