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The Millets building, where the council will convert the upper floors into six flats to be let at affordable rents (photo: HBC).

Two projects help boost town’s affordable housing supply

Hastings Borough Council has taken two important steps towards boosting the town’s supply of affordable homes, following an application by Orbit Homes and ilke Homes to build 140 affordable properties on the Harrow Lane site, while the Council resumed its own career as a registered provider by undertaking to make affordable properties for rent available at York Buildings in the town centre. Report by Nick Terdre, graphics by Russell Hall.

A major and a minor development 140 dwellings on Harrow Lane playing fields, and six new flats at 12/13 York Buildings in the town centre, all affordable – give Hastings Borough Council some momentum towards last October’s commitment to build 500 affordable homes for rent in the next five years.

The York Buildings initiative was approved at last Monday’s Cabinet meeting, on the same day that Orbit and ilke announced that all 140 dwellings on the Harrow Lane development would be affordable — previously the target had been 56, in line with council policy.

The Harrow Lane development will be based on modular buildings, a type of construction pioneered by ilke [sic]. By manufacturing parts of the buildings at its dedicated facility in Knaresborough, it is able to considerably reduce construction time on-site.

Following the granting of outline planning permission in 2019, detailed permission for reserved matters was given in March. Work on the site is expected to start this autumn, with the first homes being installed in summer 2023 and completion of the scheme in 2024.

No gas

All the units, comprising a mix of apartments and houses ranging from one to four bedrooms, will run on renewable energy from air source heat pumps (ASHPs) and solar panels.  There will be no gas — a significant step towards tackling the climate emergency given the prevalence of this fuel for heating and cooking in British homes.

Eighty-four of the dwellings will deliver zero-carbon energy.

Half the homes on the estate, which will be owned and managed by housing association Orbit Homes, will be offered at affordable rents and half for shared ownership.

“We are absolutely delighted with the progress of this project, we are providing affordable homes for local people, alongside addressing the climate emergency,” said Cllr Maya Evans, deputy leader and housing lead.

“We are very impressed with ilke Homes who have gone above and beyond in ensuring 84 homes are zero carbon, this means the energy they use will be 100% renewable, on top of fabric first sustainable building materials.”

The development at York Buildings, which houses the Millets store on the ground floor, will see the upper floors of the building, which is owned by the council, converted into six one-bedroom flats to be made available to people on the council’s lengthy housing waiting list.

“Council housing is back,” council leader Paul Barnett said in a Facebook post following approval.” At tonight’s Cabinet meeting we agreed to become landlords again, developing small housing opportunities alongside the larger schemes being done by established social landlords.”

Registered provider

This is the first project undertaken by the council under its restored status as a registered provider of social housing, which it relinquished when obliged to dispose of its housing stock in the mid 1990s.

With a refurbishment cost of £1.1m, the York Buildings development has been made viable by a £303,000 grant from Homes England. This leaves the council to come up with some £796,000 which it will borrow from the Public Works Loan Board. Even so, the economics are tight:  based on a weekly rent of around £115 per flat, the council reckons to make a slim annual surplus of £78.

The flats will also be subject to right-to-buy, though the risk of this is considered minimal, at least in the first 10 years.

The stark nature of Hastings’ housing crisis is laid bare in the committee report for the Harrow Lane development.

Targets missed

HBC’s government-set annual target for supplying additional housing is 454 dwellings, making a total of 2,270 over a five-year period starting last April. However, as the council is not meeting the so-called housing delivery test requirement – figures published in January show it had achieved only 42% – the five-year target has been bumped up by 20% to 2,724.

Recent developments in the housing market have further disadvantaged local residents seeking housing. As the council points out, sold prices in Hastings over the last year were 4% up on the previous year and 22% up on the 2019 peak of £241,129.

Having traditionally lagged average prices in the UK, this year Hastings prices have caught up, as the interactive chart shows — perhaps an indication of demand strengthening as more people have moved here.

At the same time, affordability, as measured by comparing house prices with income, has worsened. A rising ratio indicates reduced affordability, as shown in the interactive chart below. Since 2020, based on data from the Office for National Statistics, affordability has taken a turn for the worse across England, and in Hastings is now worse than in the country as a whole — a significant finding in the context of the levelling-up process.

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Posted 21:14 Sunday, Aug 7, 2022 In: Home Ground

1 Comment

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  1. kenneth davis

    Some great news at long last on new affordable housing in Hastings particularly showing that sustainability can be achieved in public housing which so many private developers resist. Increased energy standards must be included in the revised Local Plan, but will they be?
    The unanswered question here is to what extent have the Council made the York Buildings scheme sustainable? No gas? High levels of insulation and airtightness? Air source heat pumps/s? etc? The towns biggest problem remains making existing buildings more energy efficient and ever rising fuel prices stress that issue ever more.

    Comment by kenneth davis — Monday, Aug 8, 2022 @ 06:56

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