FI15041

Request

1. How many "affordable homes" that have been built in your area, under Section 106 agreements with property developers, are currently empty because a registered provider has not agreed to buy them? 

2. How many homes that were due to be built in your area, under Section 106 agreements with property developers, have seen planned construction cancelled as a registered provider has not agreed to buy them? Please provide figures for both "affordable housing" and "market housing."

Response

The Council has no involvement in the sale of affordable housing to registered providers and therefore does not hold the information you have requested.

 

Internal Review Documents

Internal Review Request:

Thanks. But please note I hereby request an internal review. As a planning authority you must have some record of whether the requirements you imposed are fulfilled or not.

Internal Review Response:

I can advise that the Council has no involvement in the sale of the affordable home units to the Registered Provider and as such we are not aware if any sales have fallen through or properties are left empty, or if sites are delayed for this reason.  Once a planning consent has been granted, it would need to be complied with, and therefore the agreed affordable units (and the tenure) within a scheme are built out as permitted.  The applicant/developer would need to get a new consent if they wish to change this planning consent as the Affordable Housing is agreed at the time of the consent through a Section 106 legal agreement.  Planning consents typically expire after 3 years, and if it’s not started in that time, the planning department does not require any information from a developer as to why a scheme has not been built out, and we do not hold records of empty properties in the schemes, we only monitor when they are physically built.

With regards to the process of how the Affordable Units are then allocated to residents once they are built; the developer of the scheme would liaise with the Registered Provider and the Council housing department.  The housing department will sometimes act as the Registered Provider and take the units on themselves and also builds Affordable Housing schemes themselves.  The following link provides further information:  New Affordable Housing (dover.gov.uk)

The Authority Monitoring Report (page 22) Authority-Monitoring-Report-22-23.pdf (dover.gov.uk), provides further information on the amount of Affordable Housing that has been provided/permitted in the District since 2006.  If, at the time the application is granted, the applicant is not able to build the Affordable units on site, we will accept off-site financial contributions towards Affordable Housing and the housing department will use these funds to build Affordable housing elsewhere.  Information on the funds received, spent and held for Affordable Housing can be found in the Infrastructure-Funding-Statement-2022-23.pdf (dover.gov.uk).

In light of this, I can confirm that the Council does not hold the data you are seeking.  To obtain this information you would need to contact the Registered Providers and/or the Developers of the sites directly.