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Councillor accuses District Council of not providing straight answers over affordable housing targets
03/08/2023
No one present at the meeting could explain how a key performance indicator was derived
A local Councillor has accused Cherwell District Council of not providing straight answers to a senior committee of its own councillors over affordable housing targets.
At Tuesday night’s meeting of the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee Councillors Ian Middleton and Sean Woodcock both questioned the figures quoted for the delivery of affordable housing in the Council’s quarterly performance report.
The report stated that the target of 36 new affordable homes in the last quarter had been delivered. Councillors asked how the figure of 36 had been derived.
The point was made that if it was one-quarter of the annual requirement the total target for the year would be 144. But this fell well below the figure of 193 new affordable homes per year which appeared in a separate Council policy document – the Housing and Economic Needs Assessment. That is a key document feeding into the creation of the new Draft Local Plan.
When pushed to explain the difference between the two figures neither Council Leader Councillor Barry Wood, the Lead Member for Housing Councillor Nicholas Mawer, or the officers present were able to do so.
Councillor Sean Woodcock, Leader of the Labour group at Cherwell, told the meeting it could appear that the Council was simply picking a target figure it knew it would achieve so as to pass its own performance test.
Following the meeting he said: “It is frankly not good enough that we have been unable to get straight answers to fairly simple questions.
“These figures are meant to be forming the basis for important and contentious decisions yet it is unclear on what basis they are being put forward. It has the potential to undermine trust in the process. Particularly if it is simply a case of the council picking targets so that it can give a good mark to its own homework.”
Since the meeting the council has issued a statement explaining how the figures are derived.
A spokesperson for Cherwell District Council told Banbury FM: “Our target for delivering 190 affordable homes this year is derived from our adopted Local Plan. We break this down over the year to reflect seasonal and market conditions. So, for this year we were forecasting 36 affordable homes in Qs 1 and 4 when the market tends to be slower and 59 for Qs 2 and 3 when it’s usually more buoyant. In Q1, 45 affordable homes were delivered, an overachievement against the target (the target was thus rated green). It is however important to note that our ability to deliver this level of housing is dependent upon external factors such as permissions granted and delivery rates.
“The source for the 193 housing figure is the housing need evidence which is informing our emerging Local Plan for 2020-2040. The council will be considering a draft of the 2020-2040 Local Plan (Regulation 18 stage) at the Scrutiny meeting on the 16th August and then at its Executive meeting on the 4th September. If approved, there will be extensive public consultation over the autumn to capture people’s views on all aspects of the Local Plan, including future targets for affordable housing.
“As normal practice we update our KPIs [Key Performance Indicators] as and when new policy decisions come into effect but as things currently stand the agreed target for affordable housing is 190.”
Published: by Banbury FM Newsteam