Affordable housing includes both social rented housing, provided by a housing association and intermediate housing, also known as shared ownership. It is available for people who are unable to meet their housing needs in the open housing market without some assistance.
Understanding local housing need
In North Lincolnshire the demand for affordable housing has increased rapidly over the last five years as house prices have more than doubled.
In order to plan future provision a good understanding of the housing needs of local people is required. Each year research is carried out to maintain our understanding. For more information about recent research projects visit our housing research pages.
What are we doing to meet housing need?
In order to meet local housing needs, more affordable housing is needed in North Lincolnshire.
There are two main ways in which we can increase the available affordable housing.
- Planning gain; and
- Direct funding from the Government through the Housing Corporation.
Planning gain
In accordance with national guidance the planning system is charged with ensuring that where there is evidence of need for affordable housing, local planning policies seek an element of affordable housing on appropriate development sites.
In North Lincolnshire the adopted Local Plan (2003) and the Supplementary Planning Guidance 9 - Affordable Housing set out the council's policy for securing affordable housing.
Work is currently underway to replace the Local Plan with a new suite of planning policy documents known as the Local Development Framework. During the completion of the Local Development Framework the policies for the provision of affordable housing will be revised.
How does this work in practice?
In practice this means that on new housing development sites that meet the policy requirement for affordable housing provision, we will negotiate with developers to secure new affordable homes. The new homes are owned and managed by a Housing Association and are available for either rent or shared ownership.
In order to validate a planning application with an affordable housing requirement the form below must be completed and agreed with Strategic Housing.
Affordable housing application [Pdf] 51kb
To access these homes you must be registered on the North Lincolnshire Housing Register (also known as the waiting list). You will then be assessed against the criteria of the allocation policy.
Government funding
The planning system cannot deliver affordable housing that will meet every aspect of identified housing need. In some areas general housing development may not be possible, for example due to lack of sites or policy restrictions in rural areas. Equally, the planning system cannot always effectively deliver homes to meet the special needs some people have, for example disabilities.
In order to meet these needs we work in partnership with colleagues across the council, local housing associations, the Rural Housing Enabler Project and others to bid for funding to develop specific affordable housing projects.
2006/2008 Housing Corporation bidding round
In the 2006/2008 Housing Corporation bidding round we successfully secured funding for the following projects:
- Scunthorpe Extra Care Housing Scheme
- Epworth elderly people's affordable housing scheme
- Kirton in Lindsey general needs affordable housing scheme
- Ulceby general needs affordable housing scheme
- Youthbuild project
We are currently working on the 2008-2011 funding round from which we'll seek further funding to achieve the strategic priorities outlined in the housing strategy.
Affordable Housing Stock in North Lincolnshire
This report provides information regarding the affordable housing stock in North Lincolnshire. It gives information of all affordable housing for rent and shared ownership within North Lincolnshire.
Note: The above documents are in Portable Document Format (PDF). You will need a suitable reader to view them. A reader can be downloaded free from the Adobe website (full instructions for downloading the reader are provided on the site).