Building New Affordable Homes

Enabling - Housing Futures

The role of the Council has changed over the last 20 years to a role of enabling suitable homes to be built in areas where they are needed. We work with Social Housing Providers (Housing Associations) and developers who develop affordable housing in the district. The housing built can be new general needs housing including shared ownership (part rent and part buy) housing and special needs housing.

Developers planning to build housing within the district should contact the Housing Futures team to discuss their plans prior to making a planning application.

Developers are very often required to provide affordable housing, at their own expense, on a site as a condition of planning approval. Our adopted Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) explains how we will secure affordable housing through 106 agreements. Click on the link here to view the Affordable Housing SPD.

Adopted Affordable Housing SPD (PDF Document, 0.91 Mb)

How does the enabling role support district residents?

One of the main tasks includes negotiation with developers on section 106 agreements. When a housing development is being planned in the district the housing developer is required to provide some affordable houses to be managed by a Housing Association. These could be rented properties or shared ownership. The council will have nomination rights to these houses so that we can make sure that people who are in need of housing and on our council waiting list will be offered one of these new affordable houses.

The Affordable Housing Enabler will talk to developers on how many homes should be affordable and what type of housing is needed, flats, houses or bungalows and the number of bedrooms needed.

The Affordable Housing Enabler will also help in the co-ordination of local housing needs surveys in Rural Parishes so we can find out how much affordable housing is needed in Rural areas. This is usually done with the assistance of the Leicestershire and Rutland Rural Housing Enabler. Very often house prices are very high in rural areas and first- time buyers or people on low or moderate incomes cannot afford to buy there own home. The work of the Rural Housing Enabler is very important in ensuring there are suitable homes in the rural areas of NWL. Click here for more information about the Leicestershire & Rutland Rural Housing Enabler.