Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

89A: After Clause 130, insert the following new Clause—
“Use class for affordable housing
(1) Part C of the Schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 is amended as follows.(2) In Class C3 (dwellinghouses), at end insert “,but not for a use within Class C3A.”(3) After Class C3 insert—“Class C3A. Affordable housingUse for the provision of affordable housing.””

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to move this amendment tabled in the names of my noble friends Lord Shipley and Lord Tope. Much discussion has taken place on the need for affordable housing, but it is unclear what will actually happen. This amendment would create a new clause for housing which is affordable by granting to local authorities the power to protect defined sites for affordable housing.

For the past decade, local authorities have had to carry out strategic housing market assessments without which their housing and planning decisions would not be informed by evidence. Thus they know, or should know, the level and nature of demand in their areas for housing which is genuinely affordable. In addition, they are able to obtain evidence on desired tenures, size of homes and their location. They are, however, restrained in delivering the housing they know is needed from the evidence base they have obtained because the market lags behind changes in needs and demand. So a local authority can identify a need for a particular site to have homes which are affordable built on it, but currently it cannot specify that. This is not about creating mono-tenure estates since the parcels of land could be quite small.

A crucial consideration in this proposal is that it would help with the viability gap for affordable housing: if affordable housing was detached from the C3 use class, land prices would fall when a site was defined as being for affordable housing. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville]

I thank the Minister for his response and I agree that there is a balance to be struck between maintaining housing in the affordable sector and the right to buy. I will read Hansard and we may return to this matter at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 89A withdrawn.