Cambridge City Council has published reports ahead of its Housing Scrutiny Committee on 17 September which set out a statement of intent to successfully deliver its 10-year house-building programme, improve existing council homes, and remain financially prudent.
Through a proposed portfolio approach the council would have greater flexibility over the mix of homes it builds across multiple sites, while maintaining a good mix of size and type of homes in well-balanced communities.
This would ensure the council is able to sustain its ambitious 10-year house-building programme to build much-needed council homes while reducing the financial risk to the council. The council’s ambition for the 10-year programme is to build 1,000 council and 1,000 market homes in the city by 2030. This would build on a significant milestone for the council later this year: the completion of 1,000 homes built since 2018.
Alongside this approach, the council would ask government for £208.5 million to support the 10-year programme, and specifically request more strategic funding arrangements similar to those provided through the Greater London Authority, so that allocations of funding could be obtained for use flexibly across house-building programmes, rather than ring-fenced for individual projects.
Further changes are also being proposed to the council’s Sustainable Housing Design Guide, which would see a shift in focus from Passivhaus certification to a new ‘Cam Standard’. This new standard would be close to the same high energy efficiency and sustainability requirements without the premium cost of Passivhaus certification. The recommendation is for the new Cam Standard to be trialled and reported back to a future Housing Scrutiny Committee in 2025 along with recommendations on how to meet net zero standards in house building.
Earlier in the month, the council joined over 100 of England’s council landlords in co-signing a statement regarding a new approach needed for council house building. The five solutions set out detailed and practical recommendations to the new government including a one-off injection of funding, reforms to right to buy and improving flexibility on existing funding.
Cllr Gerri Bird, Executive Councillor for Housing, said: “Our vision for Cambridge is a place where everyone has a warm, safe, and affordable home, and we are doing everything we can to make that vision a reality. We are making good progress. We built the second highest number of council homes in the country last year, as well as some market homes which are also desperately needed in the city. The sale of these market homes goes some way to helping us with the affordability of building new council homes, but it is getting increasingly difficult.
“We’re looking ahead to how we can deliver more new, high quality council homes through our 10-year house-building programme, while costs continue to increase and funding continues to decrease. Just this week we joined 100 other councils across the country in calling on government to help us help them achieve their ambition for a new generation of council homes. We want to continue to play a leading part in achieving this ambition, and the proposed new portfolio approach would really help give us the flexibility we need, while also reducing the financial risk to the council of investing in essential house building.”
