What is Affordable Housing?

The term "affordable housing" can be confusing but, in terms of the Council's strategic housing responsibilities, it means housing provided at below market costs for local people who are unable to afford market priced accommodation to either rent or buy.  Affordable housing is therefore much cheaper than market housing.

At this time, affordable housing in Craven will usually be social rented housing or low cost home ownership. 

How do we provide Affordable Housing?

The Council works very closely with registered Social Landlords and the Homes and Communities Agency (the Government's funding agency) to identify and fund affordable housing opportunities.  We also work closely with private developers and use the planning process to require affordable housing as part of larger market housing developments.  At the present time we seek to achieve 40% affordable housing on private developments of 15 or more homes.  We have also contributed Council owned land to provide additional affordable homes although our land holdings are now quite limited and future opportunities to assist provision in this way will be scarce.

How do we know how much Affordable Housing is needed?

We carry out District-wide affordable housing needs surveys on a regular basis to ascertain the numbers of people in need of affordable homes in all parts of the District.  We also closely monitor the Joint Housing Waiting List maintained by Yorkshire Housing which tells us how many people have applied for affordable housing.  We then use this information to tell us how many additional homes are needed, where they are needed and what type of homes they should be.

The last Housing Needs Assessment was carried out in 2005.  This assessment indicated there was a need for 288 affordable housing units per year for the next 5 years.

Housing Needs Assessment page.