Affordable Housing for Basildon

In September 2015, the Leader of Basildon Council, Phil Tame, was quoted as saying that he wanted more Basildon homes for Basildon people. This was to be achieved by developers building new housing estates, 36% of which would be ‘affordable housing.’

But what of the housing that has continued to be sold off by Basildon Council and how will ‘affordable housing’ help Basildon people now and in the future?

Basildon has a history of social housing that comes with being a ‘New Town’, built to house people who had been made homeless or needed homes because of WWII. After that War, the Development Corporation built 15,169 homes to rent and 286 to sell. These were eventually taken over by Basildon Council, who added another 2,000 homes to this total by 1981.

Since then, however, law reforms in ‘Right to Buy’ Acts 1972, have allowed purchase of these properties at discounts of up to 70% after only 3 years of occupation. Needless to say, many tenants took the opportunity to buy and Basildon Council’s housing stock diminished. In 1972 alone, 1,400 properties were purchased in this way.

A ‘Freedom of Information’ enquiry made by Trevor Brown in 2010, asking how many council houses Basildon Council owned, was responded to with the figure of 11,276 properties.  This figure would seem to show around 6,179 have either been demolished, or purchased under the ‘right to buy’ scheme, or transferred to Housing Associations and does not account for any new council housing that may have been built since 1981-2010.

Earlier in that year, in July, the local paper reported that the housing waiting list had been slashed by more than 50% after Basildon Council introduced tougher criteria that needed to be met by applicants. This included the need to be over 18 and to have been living in Basildon borough for seven years. This has left a waiting list of approximately 1,825 people in 2015.

What is ‘affordable housing’ then asks our Basildon house agents?

This is housing that is provided for people who cannot afford to rent privately or buy privately and councils, or rather these days, Housing Associations, have criteria for whom they will consider for affordable housing. These homes are built from grants from the Government. Grants are also given to private housebuilders who build a percentage of homes for private sale and for sale/rent as affordable homes. The percentage agreed via a ‘section 106’ agreement has been increasing in favour of private dwellings over affordable ones, despite Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) regulations.

New HCA regulations will see more private builders being able to build affordable housing providing they use a registered agent to sell or rent them out. These agents are generally Housing Associations, although there have been plans for Basildon Council to take on their own house building programme under the HCA.

The ‘Forward’ on the London Assembly’s Housing Committee report states that in the ten years prior to the report( 2003-2013) councils built less than one half of 1% of new homes.

The trend is to build less council houses and remaining stock to be seen as ‘social housing’ managed by various housing associations. In Basildon, these are: Circle Housing Association; Estuary Housing Assoc; Family Mosaic; London and Quadrant Housing; Guinness Housing Trust; Salvation Army Housing Assoc; Southern Housing Group; Swan Housing Assoc ;Moat Homes Ltd.

An online search for available housing in Basildon from these 10 associations, revealed that Swan had 3 homes available with an average of 30 people looking at each one. Family Mosaic had 2 possibilities, but that was all that could be found available in Basildon.

Housing Associations, may now find that their future will follow the fate of council houses that are now privately owned. The Housing and Planning Act that was passed in May 2016, will enable tenants who have lived in their Housing Association homes for more than 3 years, to buy them at a discounted rate. In fact, like the Right to Buy of the 70’s, this is the ‘Right to Buy’ of 2016.

Affordable homes will become increasingly desirable and the 36% of affordable housing that the Basildon councillor spoke about, may eventually be found on the open housing market. These will then be available to be purchased by anybody, whatever their need and wherever they come from.

The future of affordable housing in Basildon may well help people buy their own home in the future but Basildon’s history of social housing, may well now, be over.

If you require more information about the affordable housing in Basildon, speak to one of our basildon house agents today.