Leader's blog - 1 February 2023
Published: Wednesday, 1 February, 2023
"A key objective of our Council Plan is to build affordable, energy efficient homes and deliver high quality services for all tenants by investing in the renovation of existing council homes and meet a range of housing needs.
At this week’s Housing Committee meeting we heard more about how many affordable homes the council enables with partners, and how we are looking to buy homes for people fleeing conflict.
The meeting on Tuesday, January 31 heard how those 15 homes, part-funded by the Government’s Local Authority Housing Fund would feed in to the SDC council housing stock, after serving their purpose of housing Afghan and Ukrainian refugees who arrive in this country via Government resettlement programmes.
This would be in addition to the 280 council homes which SDC has built since 2014 – we are the only council in Gloucestershire which owns and maintains its own stock of around 5,000 council houses.
In addition to those, we as a council have enabled 1,467 affordable homes between 2012 and 2022. Affordable housing, which can be for either rent or sale, are for those whose needs are not met by the market. It comprises different tenures, including social rent, affordable rent, and shared ownership.
Local, national and council planning policy provide a framework to provide these homes, and in the planning application process for large developments, there will be legal agreements in place to ensure that affordable homes are built alongside the homes for the open market."
This week's blog was written by Cllr Mattie Ross
Chair, Housing Committee