THE LEADER of Bromsgrove District Council has told The Standard the authority would consider building its own properties as one of the ways of dealing with the area’s housing deficit.
We approached Coun Geoff Denaro after the Liberal Democrat Party Conference where leader Vince Cable called on the Government to enable councils to borrow funds to build affordable homes.
Coun Denaro said the authority was taking great notice of the housing situation and was developing a number of ideas to combat the shortfall.
He added he was well aware that Bromsgrove’s ‘housing multipliers’ – the average salary a person earns compared to the amount they can borrow to buy an averaged priced property – was x10 – one of the highest in the West Midlands.
According to statistics the average wage in Bromsgrove is £26,000 and the average property is £260,000.
“Helping people live in our locality is one of our strategic priorities and it is important we address the issue.”
He said one of the problems the authority had was green belt policy as 93 per cent of the available land was classed as green belt.
But, now the Bromsgrove’s local plan is in place, it can carry out its long-awaited green belt review and the assigned committee for that research is due to start scheduling meetings for it next week.
“The problem with that is it is going to take time as every area has to be looked at individually,” said Coun Denaro.
He added one of the areas that would be looked at would be the Burcot Lane site and he said there could be more news on that after the November council meeting.
He added by the end of the year the council would have a clearer view of where it was heading with regard to providing more housing in the district.
And he said, by then, the council was aiming to have more measures in place to help deal with the district’s housing problems.
* What do you think? What do you think would be the best ways of dealing with Bromsgrove’s housing deficit? Should the council start building its own properties? Or do you have other ideas of how to address the problems? Email [email protected] with your views.
