APPENDIX
THE NEED
FOR AFFORDABLE
HOUSING IN
TORBAY
On any measure, Torbay has a very serious need
for affordable housing. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report
"Can Work, Can't Buy" (Wilcox 2004) found that Torbay
is the 13th least affordable area in the country for first time
buyers under 40 years old. In Torbay average house prices are
over 11 times average earnings, compared to a national ratio of
about eight times and South West ratio of 10 times. The key problems
in Torbay are:
— Low wages. In Torbay, gross disposable
household income is £8,655, compared to £12,190 in England
and £11,447 in the South West. In 2004, over 32% of Torbay's
workforce earned less than £250 a week, compared to 17.7%
nationally and 20.4% in the South West.
— High and still rising house prices.
House prices in Torbay have risen by 153% between 1998-2005 (whereas
nationally house prices rose by 122% and in the South West by
148% over the same period). Moreover the price of smaller properties
has continued to increase at higher than the inflation rate; the
price of flats rose by 6% between June 2004-June 2005.
— Shortage of affordable housing. Social
Housing is only 7.5% of the housing stock in Torbay, compared
to 16% in the South West and 20% in England.
Torbay's Housing Needs Survey (Fordham Research
2003) identified a need for 1,816 affordable homes per year to
meet Torbay's need. Three quarters of this need is for social
rented housing. This is a very high figure, around 3.7 times Torbay's
yearly total growth rate. Because of the methodology they use,
housing needs surveys do tend to come up with high figures. More
recent best practice has suggested looking at "balancing
housing markets". This is based on the idea of assessing
how much housing is needed to "balance" the housing
market. The 2003 Fordham's report suggests an annual need for
965 additional affordable homes per year in Torbay.
Torbay's rate of housing growth between 1995-2004
was 491 dwellings per year, about 65% of this has been on previously
developed land (which exceeds the Government's target of 60%).
The Adopted Torbay Local Plan 1995-2011 contains policies to achieve
affordable housing. Policy H5 identifies a number of sites, whilst
Policy H6 seeks 30% affordable housing on "windfall"
sites over the threshold of 0.5 ha or 15 dwellings.
One particular problem that Torbay faces is
that most housing comes from small windfall sites which fall below
the minimum site size threshold that Government currently allows
for affordable housing. The Government has consulted on allowing
lower thresholds, but at present Torbay's threshold of 15 dwellings/0.5
ha is the minimum allowed size. Reducing thresholds would be a
major way in which affordable housing supply could be increased.
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