Cabinet approves next steps for Housing Delivery Plan
Kirklees Council’s Cabinet today discussed the progress of the council’s Housing Delivery Plan, and approved next steps to support their key targets for housing growth going forward.
What is our Housing Delivery Plan?
Our aim is to deliver as much high quality housing as possible, prioritising affordable homes, and building in a way that will help us achieve our goal of net zero carbon emissions by the year 2038.
There are currently 41 housing sites being developed across Kirklees which are council owned. Meanwhile, we’re also providing a wealth of support to help private developers build more housing too.
Our Homes & Neighbourhoods team, who support council tenants across Kirklees, are also delivering a programme of work to develop more council-owned new builds, as well as a scheme to purchase back houses from any previous council tenants looking to sell. This work will not only provide more council houses across the district but is also supporting our other strategic priorities, including around vulnerable people in need of temporary accommodation.
What was reviewed today?
Today, Cabinet discussed the next steps for several different projects within the Housing Development Plan.
This included looking at other council-owned sites which aren’t currently being developed, but which could potentially be sold with the aim of bringing in more funding towards other areas of work – whilst still delivering that much needed housing.
Cabinet also looked at the way in which we will continue to work with developers to deliver affordable homes.
Councillor Graham Turner, Cabinet Member for Growth & Regeneration, says:
“Here in Kirklees, our housing situation echoes the national shortage. We’re already on track with a many-pronged approach to tackle this shortage, providing new quality and affordable homes across Kirklees.
“What we want to be doing throughout the delivery of our Housing Development Plan is keeping in mind the bigger picture – hence the many-pronged approach. We want to make sure we’re working to an overarching plan which will help aspiring home-owners, private renters and council tenants, and support other developers too.
“We work with many different partners and organisations to ensure we’re providing different solutions to the variety of sites we have, to ensure we maximise the amount of homes we can deliver – both for rent and for sale. Partnership working is the key to delivering much-needed homes. We will continue to work with our excellent existing partners, and continue to seek out others who can help us deliver our ambitions.
“These big ambitions and the current economic climate also mean we need to keep evaluating ourselves and our strategy, to make sure we’re producing the best results for the whole of Kirklees.”