Doncaster Council back on track with council house building following drop in stock

According to Cabinet Member for Housing and Business and Deputy Mayor Glyn Jones, the council house building programme is on track to meet residents’ needs for housing.

It comes after concerns from Conservative councillors about a stagnant period that increased pressure on council housing stock.

In a full council meeting, Councillor Thomas Noon asked the cabinet: “Over the last 10 years we have seen a decrease in our social housing levels, but an increase in the size on the waiting list, (currently at 7,741) yet during this time we have only built 476 council houses, why is this?”

Coun. Jones gave a written response saying: “Over the last 10 years we have seen an increase of 521 Council led housing stock. We have also seen 1,470 Housing Association led property additions in the same time frame.

“Three reasons for lack of council housing and loss in numbers: The Right To Buy Scheme which allows residents to purchase their council house at a significant discount. As an example for every 10 council properties sold through Right to Buy we can afford to build one replacement property, that’s one property to replace 10.

“This is the main reason council housing stock is being lost throughout the country.

“The second reason is the year on year cut in rent that government enforced for four years from 2016/17 to 2019/20, this saw rent fall by one per cent per year during this period. This led to a significant fall in income, and alongside rising costs this meant cuts across St Leger, including the numbers of properties they could purchase.

“The third reason, was the strict borrowing limits that limited the amount that could be borrowed against the Housing Revenue Account. This was abolished in 2018 and this has enabled us to bring about the Council House build programme.”

Coun. Jones revealed that the council house building programme is on track to move onto the second wave of planning applications.

Two new council estates in Balby were approved last week, adding 69 new builds to existing stock.