Stop developers dodging affordable housing targets, Tim Farron tells Minister

On the floor of the House of Commons yesterday, Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron urged the Minister for Housing to give local planning authorities the power to prevent housing developers ducking out of obligations to build affordable homes.

It comes after a developer lodged a bid to remove a legal requirement to provide affordable homes in a new housing development in Allithwaite.

Speaking during Housing, Communities, and Local Government Questions in Parliament, Tim said: “How will the Minister stop developers using viability assessments to wriggle out of providing affordable homes for communities such as mine in Westmorland, where an agreement for 12 affordable houses to be delivered in Allithwaite near Grange-over Sands has been torn up and the council has no power to stop it? 

“Will he help us?”

Housing minister Matthew Pennycook replied: “We think it is right that developers can use site-by-site viability assessments, as the alternative where viability challenges are acute is that we get no homes coming forward at all. 

“We have consulted, in the recent consultation on the NPPF, on standardised inputs to viability, and we will set out further steps in due course.”

Speaking afterwards, Tim said: “I’m afraid the minister’s response was simply not good enough.

“This Government are insisting that 26,000 more homes are built in Westmorland and Furness over the next 20 years, but are refusing to give our council the powers it needs to ensure that those houses are actually affordable for local people.

“I’ll keep fighting for us to get the affordable homes that our communities desperately need.”