'Where are the affordable homes?' - MP

2:11pm Wednesday 26th March 2008

DURHAM'S city council is under attack because a developers' plans to revamp its offices do not include affordable housing.

The Liberal Democrat-controlled Durham City Council is leaving Byland Lodge, a 19th Century villa in Hawthorn Terrace, near the city centre, and relocating staff to other premises.

The Durham Villages Regeneration Company, which the council part-owns and works with on projects throughout the district, has submitted a planning application to convert some of the building into five flats and build 22 houses and another flat.

But the city's Labour MP, Roberta Blackman-Woods, who has attacked the council's general record on affordable housing, has criticised it again because the scheme does not include any.

She said the Local Plan, which sets out local planning policies, required that developments of 25 or more homes include some affordable housing.

Dr Blackman-Woods said: "It is an absolute outrage that the city council feel they can dodge the issue of affordable housing.

"Durham has unjustly suffered in recent years due to the failure of the council to adopt a strong stance on the provision of affordable housing.

"What is most depressing is that now there is a specific policy in place to ensure affordable housing is provided and the city council are still not doing anything about it.

"Affordable housing is an issue of local and national importance and I'm very concerned that if this application is granted, it would set a very negative precedent in Durham.

"I have therefore written to the Government Office for the North-East to ask the Secretary of State to look at the application.'' A council spokeswoman said: "The city council has a policy to address affordable housing and its partnership with the Durham Villages Regeneration Company is part of a strategy that is designed to deliver that policy, as it has done consistently with the DVRC and the Durham Housing Partnership over the past ten years.

"This application is by the DVRC to the city as planning authority and it is not possible for us to comment or be seen to pre-judge the outcome of the committee's deliberations. That is in the gift of the development control committee to evaluate.'' She added that affordable housing was one of many issues a planning authority had to consider when deciding planning applications.

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