The Isle of Wight Council’s housing chief has said its delivery model has ‘ground to a halt’ and ‘does not work’.
It led to the council’s executive being criticised for not building affordable housing at a time when nearly 2,500 Island families are in most need of a home.
At a meeting of the Isle of Wight Council’s corporate scrutiny committee on Tuesday, deputy leader and cabinet member for housing and homeless, Councillor Ian Stephens reflected on the dire state of the Island’s housing crisis and said they had a mountain to climb.
It comes as figures from the authority reveal the average price of a new build property has almost doubled in the last 12 years — jumping from £189,742 in 2010 to £373,663 in January this year.
A council report concluded that at the current prices and wages Islanders receive, 83.2% of residents could not afford a new build home on the open market.
Cllr Stephens said the council was in a place they did not want to be and that the ‘ray of light’ thought to be modular housing cabinet agreed to take forward last October has progressed no further. He said:
“I see the impression I thought we were going to make has lost traction and ground to a halt.”
Members of the committee, however, felt they had no answers to what the council was doing or had done to deliver affordable housing.
Cllr Stephens said the system currently in place does not work and needs fixing, he hoped, through a cabinet reshuffle and reorganisation of council departments to make more of a ‘robust and sustainable housing unit’ in the Isle of Wight Council and get a service fit for purpose.
Councillor Joe Robertson, however, said he was not convinced it was a structural problem within the authority but a delivery one; since the council has a housing company, created by the previous Conservative administration, which remains dormant.
The council also approved the borrowing of £40million to start building houses in its financial budget for the year.
Chris Ashman, the council’s regeneration director, said it was a problem for both recent administrations and that the housing strategy approved in 2020, ‘on the eve of the pandemic’, still has the right tools to deliver
Cllr Robertson however said it was a considerable embarrassment to the council it was halfway through the 5-year strategy and all they could agree was there is a crisis that is tough to solve. He said the pieces were in place, it was just down to the council’s executive to ‘just do it’ and ‘must take action’.
The matter will be further discussed at the committee as councillors were not happy with the lack of answers they had been given.
The council also approved the borrowing of £40million to start building houses in its financial budget for the year.
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erm no, how about not borrowing cash, which will have interest added to the repayments. Those repayments will come from council tax payers cash.
why don’t these lot focus on making the island a better place to live, rather than trying to import more people here, creating more problems and ruining the environment further with more benefit hutches.
Well said!
It’s not a surprise is it.
Affordable housing and the housing crisis comes a long way behind ‘Starry Skies’ ‘Biosphere’ ‘Newport City Status’ ‘Bus Stops’ ‘Harbours’ & ‘Cycle Tracks’ with this council.
Really some of these people should be stepping aside from their positions. It’s serious stuff.
Ah, a re-shuffle. Yes, that always works.
No doubt Mr Seely can inform us as to how 82% of residents can’t afford to buy a home at market rates. Let alone rent as decent one.
Good because it was a rubbish and ill conceived mess of a plan to start with.
Why dont the council have their own build programme? The cost of a basic flat pack build should still come in at under 100K for a liveable home. The homeless want a good basic place of their own, not a palace.
Maybe I’m wrong. There must be some builder persons who contribute on here to put me in my place.
This sounds like a load of waffle, without actually explaining anything. £40 million and can’t build one house let alone enough to ease the current problem. Who exactly is it doing nothing? Is it just another case of a useless council? Probably.
Come on councillors get your thinking caps on it shouldn’t be beyond you
Problem is paupers expect too much.
Most poor people ensure they have children and oft more than most.
This selfishness then means 18 years down the line or less nowadays these teens are pushing a buggy full and demanding a home then rinse repeat
If social/affordable homes were NOT made a priority to poor people with children then they might use free contraception and the cycle would end
No hint of condescension then Mrs T?
Wasn’t the modular housing plan about buying a load of shipping containers and stacking them on top of each other? What’s not to like?
How many of these so called 2,500 families needing homes are actually from this Island ??
All of them I expect.
Or indeed from the UK
Trouble is, so many expect so much for so little. Benefit payments were introduced years ago to help an unemployed person UNTIL they found and secured a job.
Now many thousands actually think it’s their right to be given everything for free. Actually it’s not free, the hard working tax payer are paying to keep people who some never have had a job and never intend getting a job.
They are given somewhere to live and everything else is paid for them. Perhaps social accommodation could be built on a budget, they are given a home with the added clause, they secure a job and an income?
So after WW2 thousands of new homes were needed , so as a temporary measure prefabricated homes were built. infact 150,000 were built in 4 years and there are a fair few still around.so if they could do that back then , what the hell is stopping us doing it now.
Council, planning, building bureaucracy it’s about time this council stopped coming up with different excuses and do the job they are very well paid to do .
Look after the community of this island.
Rant over