and social housing reform agenda. With an ambitious programme of policy reform well underway, this is a time of significant change for local strategic housing and planning, both in terms of policy and practice. This section of the report briefly summarises some of the key changes underway within the national and regional/sub-regional policy contexts, upon which this research has a bearing. National policy The Department for Communities and Local Government has outlined what the Government wants to achieve in terms of housing as: Increase the number of houses available to buy and rent, including affordable housing; Improve the flexibility of social housing (increasing mobility and choice) and promote homeownership; Protect the vulnerable and disadvantaged by tackling homelessness and support people to stay in their homes; and Make sure that are of high quality and sustainable. What follows is a brief summary of some of the key elements of the Government’s national policy agenda, including: Comprehensive Spending Review headlines; The Growth White Paper; The Welfare Reform Bill and housing benefit reform; Social housing reform; Reform of council housing finance; The new Affordable Rent model; The National Planning Policy Framework; The Localism Act; and The National Housing Strategy. Comprehensive Spending Review Investment for the period April 2011 to March 2015 were outlined in the Comprehensive Spending Review of 20th October 2010. Investment in new affordable housing is to be met through capital investment (of up to £2.5bn) with the balance raised through new Affordable Rent tenancies offered to new social rented tenants at 80% of market rents. Where this combination of higher rent and lower grant is insufficient to make new schemes viable, Registered Providers (RPs) will be expected to convert existing social rent tenancies to affordable rent (or intermediate tenure for sale) when properties are vacated to cross-subsidise new provision.
The SHMA has provided net and affordable requirement figures based on the CLG housing needs assessment model. In terms of implications for the scale and type of affordable housing to be delivered, Table 4.23 considers the overall gross shortfalls by delivery area and applies the gross proportions to the net shortfall figure. This helps to determine the relative housing shortfall by basing analysis on the overall (gross) shortfalls but applied to a baseline net figure which takes account of existing affordable housing capacity. Table 4.23 Affordable shortfalls by delivery area Delivery area General Older Person TOTAL Total HHs Smaller 1/2 Bed 3+Bed North Durham 97 29 68 194 60151 Central Durham 46 20 53 119 East Durham 61 4 72 137 41416 The Dales and South Durham 80 16 129 225 Total 284 69 321 674 223803 The method for calculating affordable requirements is explored in full in Technical Appendix D. Tenure split In terms of the split between social rented and intermediate tenure products, the household survey identified tenure preferences of existing and newly-forming households and also the extent to which intermediate tenure products could be afforded. Table 4.24 indicates that existing households in need mainly considered social renting as a preferred tenure option but newly-forming households had a much stronger preference for intermediate tenure options. Table 4.24 Tenure preferences of existing households in need and households requiring affordable housing Tenure Existing households in need Newly-forming households Total Affordable (Social) Rent 82.6 72.2 76.7 Intermediate Tenure 17.4 27.8 23.3 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 Base (annual requirement) 980 1274 2254 Source: 2012 household survey, rebased to 2011 Census