The proposed land to be gifted away in Yeld Close, Bakewell. Image from Google.
Report by Local Democracy Reporter – Eddie Bisknell
A Derbyshire council has agreed to gift land worth £175,000 to a developer for free to enable the building of attainable homes rather than “big sparkling” unaffordable houses.
At a Derbyshire Dales District Council meeting this month, councillors approved a move to gift land for eight-to-10 affordable homes to a housing association.
The meeting was told the land off Yeld Close in Bakewell, close to Lady Manners School and the town’s junior school, has been earmarked for affordable homes since 2002 and rented out as grazing land until an opportunity arose to develop it, which it now has.
Nottingham Community Housing Association, in partnership with developer MyPad, would be given the narrow half-acre strip of land to form part of a larger 42-home scheme in the adjoining field, which received planning permission in November last year.
All 42 homes on the neighbouring development, approved by the Peak District National Park Authority, would be affordable in perpetuity and restricted to people with a local connection, as would be the case for the proposed eight-to-10 homes on the district council’s land.
Mike Galsworthy, the council’s estates and facilities manager, said the strip of land had been retained following the 2002 transfer of housing stock to enable affordable housing development, with 100 homes built on other “banked” sites via this method since then.
He said the council was aware of the “human element” of the move to gift the land away, having rented it as grazing land throughout that period, with one person tending to it for the past 16 years.
Mr Galsworthy said the current tenant has used the land to keep ponies and that they had told him it was an “important part of their family life” and “not something that can be easily replicated”, due to the lack of nearby parcels of land.
He said the process would be handled as “pain free” as possible, with a long timescale for it to be vacated, with a planning application to be submitted this month, an aim to achieve approval by September 2027, start on site by November 2027 and completion of the build by November 2028.
The council says vacant possession is needed to transfer the land, so it will be scrapping the £150 per year grazing licence for the plot to be vacated by Spring next year.
Niki Wells, the council’s housing enabling and development officer, said there was a “significant demand” for affordable housing in Bakewell, with 58 households in need of accommodation.
She said most of this could be met on just this site alone by 2028, saying it was a “real opportunity to meet this need”, with the gift of land necessary to achieve financial viability.
Ms Wells detailed that the council would typically give grants to housing associations for houses to be built on its behalf, so the gift of land was in lieu of that usual payment.
She said this would have been £12,000 per plot for this site, which would range between £96,000-£120,000 for this development, depending on if eight or 10 homes are built.
Remaining financial help would have been offered to pay for the “ransom price” attached to the site by the private landowner, she said, with the overall site value to cover this.
Councillor Simon Ripton said: “We are not losing money, we are simply optimising the transaction to pursue our policy goals. Dozens and dozens of families desperate for housing in the Peak Park, people are in desperate need for housing, we cannot pretend there isn’t a need for housing.”
Cllr Helen Froggatt, who used to live on Yeld Close in the 70s, claimed the current tenants found out there were expected to be evicted via a newspaper article, which she dubbed “absolutely diabolical” after years of looking after the plot.
Cllr Froggatt claimed people from Burton in Staffordshire were “shipped in” to fill another new-build estate in Bakewell, because the rent was too high.
She said money ought not be given to an “extremely wealthy” housing association.
Cllr Roger Shelley said getting housing associations to build affordable homes in the Peak Park was a “long-running concern” of the council.
He said there is a “genuine, greater need” “for the benefit of Bakewell and the surrounding area”.
Cllr Shelley said young people remain at a “disadvantage” when trying to buy a home in and around Bakewell and that this was a “small step” in the right direction.
Cllr Geoff Bond said he was “irked” at the way the current tenants had been treated and said they could have been more involved in the process.
Council leader, Steve Flitter, said: “Yes it is difficult and there are always difficult decisions to make and we have to make a decision one way or another and it is heart wrenching sometimes.
“I am looking at the value to the community rather than to the individual. For the gift of a small piece of land to enable 8-10 homes to be developed that are the right type of homes… we don’t want big three or four bedroom houses because people can’t afford those. “This is a wholesale benefit to the community and to people who can less afford the big sparkling house you probably find in the Peaks and Dales.
“There is a real problem there in that we are not getting enough social housing on the platform at the moment.”
Councillors approved the plan by a vote of five in favour, two against and two abstaining.
