This week's edition of the County Times contained extensive coverage of the Berkely Homes decision, but it also contained a couple of other related items that support Horsham Labour party's arguments for affordable housing and show why our ongoing campaign is so necessary.The first item was the highly topical news of a new survey published by Shelter. It found that 98% of councils in England are failing to deliver enough affordable housing to meet local needs. It is no surprise to find that Horsham are not one of the 2% that are performing adequately in this area!
In fact Horsham district council rank 144th nationally and 33rd out of 67 councils in the region, delivering only 20% of the affordable housing needed. The full summary for Horsham can be found here. It says that:
- You would have to earn £55,248 to afford to buy an average-priced house in the area. (The average gross annual income in the area is £23,310)
- At current letting rates it would take 3.57 years to clear the current waiting list. (And that assumes nobody else joins it)
- Horsham needs 327 new affordable homes a year, but only 72 were planned by the council and only 67 were delivered.
When we met with Horsham district council we were told that higher levels of affordable housing were impossible for economic reasons. Is the economy so different less than ten miles away?
The other item in this week's paper was an article by David Standfast, the chief executive of Saxon Weald - the housing association that that bought Horsham council's housing stock. We can find very little to disagree with in his analysis of the housing situation in Horsham. He says that:
There are far too few available homes to meet substantial and growing housing need.He expands on the reasons for this, and the impact it has on anybody earning the average wage or less in the district. It is a very concise summary of all the key points we have been campaigning on in recent years.