Watch my speech on improving social housing
The Social Housing Bill contains many welcome measures but fails to address an issue that is hollowing out villages in South Devon: the disposal of social housing stock by registered providers.
Over the last five years, 3,600 new homes have been built across South Devon, yet more than 2,400 families remain in housing need.
The government argues more housebuilding is the solution to our housing crisis. Clearly, that’s not the case.
When a single social rented home recently came up in Malborough, 119 households bid for it. In Salcombe, it was 113. In Brixham, 190.
How will more houses at full market price assist those desperate for a social home?
What we need is more social housing. But demand is vastly outstripping supply, and the issue is being exacerbated by housing associations selling off the few affordable homes that do exist.
In the South Hams, one housing association has sold off 49 homes since 2022 with the heaviest losses in Salcombe and Dartmouth.
In Kingswear, 36% of social housing stock has been lost in the last three years. The primary school there has since closed. With so few affordable homes, there’s little prospect of families moving in to replace them.
When people are priced out of their villages, the knock on effects ripple through the whole community: a school loses a pupil it cannot afford to lose, a shop loses a regular customer, a pub or café loses a member of staff it cannot easily replace. Multiply that across village after village, and you start to see how an entire community’s viability is hollowed out.
It’s no exaggeration to say the future of rural communities depends on there being homes that local people can afford to live in.
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