Housing in East Devon
Housing priorities
East Devon is finalising the Stock Option review. We wish to retain our housing stock of over 4000 properties valued at approximately £250m. We do not need a capital receipt to pay off our debt and if we sold the Council’s housing to a housing association, we fear that a significant proportion of the capital receipt could be lost from East Devon. The tenants are represented.
We are working in an environment where grants from the Government are given to those areas most in need. Through careful investment over many years our housing meets the Decent Homes Standard, therefore are not considered amongst the most needy in the region, so we may not receive any monies, as we are in competition with areas such as Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth, Swindon, Torbay etc.
We need to keep the housing owned by the Council in good condition and work towards managing our housing stock as a ‘stand alone’ service, where rents and other income covers the costs of the service, essentially repairs and management of the housing stock. Unfortunately we do not work in a 'normal' business environment as the government takes over £4.5 million to subsidise other areas from our rental income.
We have over 2500 households on our Housing Register, so we need to develop new and innovative ideas to provide homes for these people. We have many families living under considerable stress in housing which does not meet their needs and we want to provide solutions to these peoples’ housing problems, particularly where they are unable to resolve their own problems.
We are reacting to situations rather than planning ahead. The proposed New Town, now called Cranbrook, will provide over 1100 'affordable homes' but in itself, this will not solve the housing problem, as the majority of our families wish to live in their home area. We urgently need a mix of low cost housing to buy, rent, or purchase on a shared equity basis, to be affordable to our people in our low wage economy.
We are asking ourselves - Does EDDC own any land that can obtain planning permission for low cost housing development ? Does the private sector own land or property that it would be willing to develop with EDDC in partnership with a Housing Association to provide ‘homes for rent’ where we guarantee rental income and manage the property?
