Council to prioritise delivering its own affordable housing
26/11/2025
The plan includes building 150 new council homes each year by the end of the decade
by Nadia Lincoln, Local Democracy Reporter
West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) has said it will prioritise its ambition to “build the homes that people need and can afford”, as it looks to boost the delivery of its own social and affordable homes in the area.
According to a housing delivery update report going to the place and resources scrutiny committee on Wednesday (November 26), from 2021/22 to 2023/24 an average of 598 new affordable homes have been built in West Northants each year. This includes all types of affordable homes delivered by developers, registered providers, and the council.
There are three main types of affordable housing – social rent (which is calculated using a government formula and is usually around half of market rent), affordable rent (which is roughly 80 per cent of market rent), and shared ownership (which enables tenants to purchase a share of a house and pay affordable rent until they can then purchase additional shares to own the house).
WNC has said it is setting a target of delivering 650 affordable homes per year by 2029/30, with a stretch target of 750 per year. It has also pledged a target to build 150 new council homes each year by the end of the decade, within this.
Development of new council housing projects was previously the responsibility of Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH), however it was moved back to the council’s Major Projects & Regeneration service in November 2024 after a series of issues that saw schemes consisting of more than 400 planned affordable homes collapse.
In the same three-year time period, the council directly delivered 89 affordable homes each year on average. The majority of affordable homes came forward from Section 106 contributions on major housing projects, which gives a target of 35 per cent of the total homes to be built for affordable tenures.
The WNC report stated: “Despite strong housing delivery figures in recent years, this delivery falls far short of addressing the housing need in West Northamptonshire. A large proportion of the housing delivered is for shared ownership (40 per cent), whilst this is a valuable tenure to help residents get on the housing ladder it is not suitable for most households on our waiting list.
“Additionally, the rapid increases in market rent means that affordable rent, which accounts for 42 per cent of recent delivery, is no longer affordable or suitable for many households.”
As of October 2025 ,there were 2,125 households with live applications and a further 3,105 awaiting assessments on the WNC housing register. Half of the cases were also in the highest priority band, representing an urgent need for housing.
The report adds: “Our Housing Strategy outlines an ambition to ‘build the homes that people need and can afford’ as well as to ‘improve the quality, standard and safety of homes and the housing service’.
“In order to properly address the housing need in West Northamptonshire it is clear that both the council and its partners will need to increase affordable housing delivery. The majority of these homes must also be for social rent.”
The authority has said it is currently developing a pipeline of sites for housing delivery, but many locations are currently undertaking feasibility studies and are not yet at a stage to reveal publicly due to commercial sensitivity.
Announced projects include 18 affordable units across multiple small garage and infill sites in Northampton, 20 units of single homelessness accommodation at Broadmead Court, 29 social rent flats and seven temporary accommodation units at Buckton Fields, 82 affordable, social rent and shared ownership homes at Harlestone Road, and 18 affordable homes at the old Ecton Brook care home site.
The council also confirmed that it had recruited two full-time permanent housing delivery officers, and relocated a number of officers from the major projects and regeneration team to work on housing delivery, to provide the council with enough resources to work towards its new targets.
Published: by the Banbury FM News Team
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