Concerns over affordable housing in Rugby raised in House of Lords

On Thursday 11 January 2018, Liberal Democrat Peer Baroness Diana Maddock spoke up about Rugby's affordable housing crisis in the House of Lords.

During a debate, Baroness Maddock highlighted the failure of national housebuilding companies to include affordable houses in their scheme.

She said, "The Rugby Gateway site has 1,000 houses planned with only 10% of them being affordable. On the Rugby radio mast site, 6,000 houses are planned with only 3% of them being affordable. As others have said, it is quite clear that a major hurdle when building more homes is the structure of the housing market, which works mainly in the interests of the volume housebuilders."

Only 22 of the first 635 houses to be built on the Rugby Radio Mast site will be affordable and only 62 of the first 606 houses to be built at Eden Park.

According to Rugby Borough Council 171 affordable houses need to be built each year, but each year building falls short of this target with only 51 affordable houses being built in 2015/16.

Rugby Liberal Democrat Councillors supported an amendment to the Local Plan to increase the target for affordable housing. Councillor Tim Douglas also raised the issue with Cabinet members at a joint Scrutiny Committee in November.

Commenting, Councillor Tim Douglas, said:

"Liberal Democrats support more affordable housing. It is clear more needs to be done in Rugby to ensure that we build homes for the people of our town. Without proper consideration of costs and local needs we run the risk of building homes that are unaffordable and unsuitable. I welcome Baroness Maddock highlighting this issue in Parliament and Rugby Liberal Democrats are determined to work with the Council to ensure we get this right."