A council scrutiny committee has voted in favour of recommending a major affordable homes plan for Scarborough is approved despite some opposition.
Members of Scarborough Council’s Lives and Homes Overview and Scrutiny Committee voted in favour of recommending that the authority’s cabinet approve the 30-year Better Homes Joint Venture with the developer Lovell Homes.
At a lengthy meeting of the committee on Friday November 4, members heard from council officers and Lovell Homes’ representatives who have been working on making the project a reality for two years.
The Better Homes Joint Venture is a 50:50 partnership between the council and the developer that plans to address the lack of affordable housing in the borough by creating “more than 700 new homes over an initial 10-year period”.
Eight sites have been ring-fenced for the project which will provide “the whole spectrum of affordable housing” and develop “difficult” as well as “easy” sites, according to council officers.
Concerns were raised at the meeting about the impact of next April’s local government reorganisation on the project, as Scarborough Council will be replaced by a new North Yorkshire Council.
Some councillors also questioned whether the project would deliver housing that will be affordable and accessible to locals.
Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Sam Cross said:
“The houses are made to make money. If they [Lovell] were coming here with a suggestion to make social housing, which is what Whitby needs, what Scarborough needs, and what Filey needs, I’d be 100 per cent in favour.”
He added:
“That’s our problem, not affordable housing. Because I don’t think affordable housing actually exists as such, not to the man in the street or the guy earning £10 an hour.
“We are a low-wage economy and it is very difficult for people to get on the housing ladder, and lots of people would be happy with a google old-fashioned council house.”
The scrutiny committee was told that all of the new homes will meet national space and environmental standards, with any council profits set to be redirected into further developments.
Councillors were reminded that there is still an ongoing legal procurement process which will need to be ratified by the authority’s cabinet at a meeting on November 15.
Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Subash Sharma said:
“The figures that were highlighted say we’re getting to 66 per cent social housing. I think that’s what we have to focus on. Not that we don’t have 100 per cent but that we are getting much, much more than we can in any other way.
“I think the role of the council is to enable that because 10 and 30 per cent is not good enough. We have to say, if we can get 60 per cent and that is all we can get, then we have to grab that with both hands. Because the alternative is not giving anybody anything.”
If approved by the authority’s cabinet, a new developer will be formed and jointly owned by Lovell and Scarborough Council in order to undertake developments.
At the end of the meeting, councillors Jane Mortimer, Subash Sharma, Teresa, Norton and committee chair David Jeffels voted in favour of recommending the plans for approval. Meanwhile, councillors Sam Cross and Clive Pearson voted against the motion.
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