For those interested in home generation (including affordable housing) and what is actually being built in South Norfolk Council here is an interesting set of figures taken from the Gov.UK website.
Government New Homes Bonus Scheme
Published 6th February 2020
The New Homes Bonus is a grant paid by central government to local councils to reflect and incentivise housing growth in their areas. It is based on the amount of extra Council Tax revenue raised for new-build homes, conversions and long-term empty homes brought back into use.
There is also an extra payment for providing affordable homes.
South Norfolk District Council added 1194 new homes to that shown on their Council Tax Base form for 2018-19.
Of these 915 were band D or equivalent and subject to reward.
South Norfolk brought back into use 71 empty homes (net difference in stock when excluding empty homes [this figure 1,123])
This council reported 357 new affordable homes (including caravan pitches), so at £350 per unit this generated an Affordable Homes Premium of £99,960.00.
When taking into account the Year 10 Payments Premium and the Legacy Payment, the additional total New Homes Bonus received from Government for 2020-21 was £4,522,143.00.
New Homes Bonus (NHB) will continue for another year, however the government very clearly intends to phase it out by 2023/24. There is no change in the operation of the scheme in 2020/21 and the threshold has been retained at 0.4%. The new amounts earned 2020/21 (Year 10) will only attract a grant for that year. In the following year (2021/22), rewards will only be paid in respect of years 8 and 9, and in year 2022/23 only for year 9, effectively ending by 2023/24. The government intends to replace NHB with a more targeted incentive which will be subject to consultation in the Spring
Undoubtedly was a benefit to South Norfolk but as you can see above, its future is limited and it is not at all sure what this new targetted incentive will be, if, given Covid, it happens at all
Anything which incentivises affordable homes I support, but one has to question how affordable they really are.
South Norfolk District Council added 1194 new homes to that shown on their Council Tax Base form for 2018-19.
Of these 915 were band D or equivalent and subject to reward.
This council reported 357 new affordable homes (including caravan pitches), so at £350 per unit this generated an Affordable Homes Premium of £99,960.00.
That is 915 band D houses out of a total of 1194 new homes = 77% of all new houses built that year are non-affordable!
What proportion of the 357 of affordable homes were caravan pitches rather than houses? Why have caravan pitches been combined with affordable houses? they are a different category.
How is this anything to do with Spooner Row where no affordable houses have been built at all?
We are sick of building and development plans for Spooner Row. Why isn't there a local consultation to find out what people in the 3 villages would like?
in preparation and quite close to doing this, but not as simple to do, as say
Need key questions, then need to get them out there, ( not everyone has or wants the internet) then we need to get the answers back, securely and safely and quickly, as we cannot wait for ever, but how long do we wait for then we have to analyse them , prepare a report for council and share the results. Then ewhen all done we need to decide what to do with them, what is affordable and by when.
That all said, in respect to development we, the council are ONLY consultees and the real decisions are made at District who also set policy on what is permitted and appropriate
