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24
Nov 2020
Housing Investigation: New homes out of reach for too many locals
In the six years Harrogate had no Local Plan, housing developers were able to flood the market with expensive four and five bedroom homes.
It meant an opportunity to address Harrogate's housing needs was missed and the district remains unaffordable for many young people and those on lower incomes, such as key workers.
Megan’s Story:
Megan McHugh, 24, has lived in Harrogate all her life and said it’s “heartbreaking” that she cannot afford to buy a house in her hometown.
She has £20,000 in savings, earns a decent salary as a team leader at a local supermarket and is careful with how she spends her money.
But she said she feels “stuck” living at her parents' house, with her dream of owning a home further and further out of reach because the local market isn’t providing the type of home she needs at a price she can afford.
“I always say this time next year I’d like to be in my own place,” she said. “Then I work it out and think I physically can’t afford it. I’d go tomorrow if I could, but I can’t.”
Megan said she gets frustrated when she sees housing developments built in Harrogate with so many four- and five-bedroom houses.
“It’s an affluent area so they want to bring more affluent people into the area and make Harrogate look better,” she added.
“But if you’re like me and you want to buy your own home in Harrogate, you’ve got absolutely no chance. I feel stuck.”
What types of homes are needed?
When a developer builds on a patch of land, 40% of the homes must be classed as “affordable”. But because HBC had no Local Plan up to 2020, it was unable to dictate to developers the types of homes needed for the remaining 60%, which led to a flood of executive-style four-and five-bedroom properties being built.
Harrogate published a Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment (HEDNA) report in 2018 outlining the types of houses are needed in the Harrogate district.
It reported a "notable” demand in the district for one- and two-bedroom properties, with estate agents suffering from a shortage in stock, which it said was driving up prices.
It also said four-bedroom properties and above should only take up 20-35% of the homes in development.
But the HEDNA report was published four years after Harrogate’s draft Local Plan was withdrawn, and in that time more than 6,000 homes had been given planning permission.
The Stray Ferret analysed the period when Harrogate went without a Local Plan and found that house builders were building far more four- and five-bedroom homes than the report said the district needed.
These include Miller Homes’ 176-home Milby Grange development in Boroughbridge, where 45% of the properties are either four- or five-bedroom, and Bellway’s 170-home Dalesway development on Skipton Road, where 43% had four bedrooms or more.
Affordable housing
While developers cashed in to build expensive four-and five-bedroom homes in the district, Harrogate Borough Council has largely ensured affordable houses make up 40% of developments.
However, many of these homes are still not affordable in most normal people’s definition of the word.
The government defines affordable as homes sold at 80% of the market rate or homes for social rent.
But with the average house price in Harrogate £360,000, according to property website Zoopla, it means that an “affordable” property in Harrogate is still more than 10 times the average salary of £25,000.
Then there is social housing, which are homes provided to people on low incomes or with particular needs by councils or housing associations.
The council has around 1,800 households on its social housing waiting list — but in Harrogate, less than one in ten applicants are likely to be allocated a property each year. This waiting list has swelled as Right to Buy sales have depleted HBC of its housing stock.
To try to meet demand, the council recently spent £4.5m buying 52 homes in Stonebridge Homes’ 130-home development on Whinney Lane.
Sixteen of the homes would be transferred to HBC’s housing company, Bracewell Homes, to be sold under shared ownership, and the rest would be made available for social rent. The council has said similar purchases could be forthcoming.
"You need people of all ages to keep a place alive"
The Knaresborough Community Land Trust (CLT) is hoping to develop a disused area in the town centre to provide three flats as affordable housing.
Hilary Gardner, treasurer at the CLT, said many young people are being forced to move to places like Leeds because they simply cannot afford to buy a place in Knaresborough.
The long-term effect on people not being able to afford homes could be profound in a town like Knaresborough, which could see its lifeblood disappear. She added:
Read More:
- Harrogate targeted for development during years of planning chaos
- Case study: 75 homes forced on Killinghall after appeal
"We need homes to be distributed more fairly"
The proliferation of housebuilding in the district has largely been driven by central government, which wants to see 300,000 new homes built across the UK, with every region building its share.
However, Dr Quinton Bradley, lecturer in housing and planning at Leeds Beckett University, told the Stray Ferret the government’s economic theory for housebuilding is “fundamentally flawed” because it’s led to an uneven and unequal housing market, as seen in Harrogate.
Homes for ‘economic growth’
Harrogate’s 2018 HEDNA report concluded that the district needs 669 new homes to be built every year, yet it said only 296 of these homes are to serve the genuine housing need of the local population, which might be a young family trying to buy their first home or an elderly couple wanting to downsize.
The report added that 314 of these 669 homes should be built for “economic growth”: attracting wealthy people into the town and into high-value jobs in the science, logistics and finance industries, which are the sectors Harrogate Borough Council wants to boost, according to the HEDNA report.
However, Dr Bradley said building homes for economic growth is “basically wish fulfilment”.
With development set to progress at its current pace for at least the next 15 years, the gulf between the housing haves and have-nots in Harrogate is likely to widen further.
It means that Megan McHugh’s hopes of owning her own property in her hometown will continue to be out of reach.
Throughout this week we'll be looking at the impact of the unprecedented levels of development in the district:
- Tomorrow: Thousands of new homes – but where are the schools and doctors’ surgeries to support the people who live in them?
- Thursday: More than 26,000 extra cars on the road: one local man says traffic is putting him out of business
- Friday: Climate change: why the district’s new homes are already out of date when it comes to the environment
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