Both Rother District Council (RDC) and Rye Town Council (RTC) are investigating setting up separate housing trusts to build affordable housing.
At RDC’s Cabinet meeting on December 2 Ben Hook, Head of Services, recommenced that Rother set up a Local Housing Company. The aim of the Company will be to ‘complete up to 1,000 new homes by 2035, with the primary objective being to increase and accelerate the overall delivery of housing in the district’ he said.
The Local Housing Development Company would deliver a £200m housing programme because they will be able to borrow funds to build the homes and be able to pull on additional support from the Council.
The Company would build mixed tenure housing schemes that will included homes for sale and rent, in accordance with Rother’s Local Plan and Housing Policy. The affordable element of each housing scheme would be sold to a local registered social housing provider.
In a separate, but related, move Rye Town Council (RTC) are in discussions to create a Community Land Trust to build up to 20 affordable homes in Tilling Green. A similar initiative has been set up in Icklesham - with Rother District Council’s planning committee unanimously approving their application to build 15 affordable homes at the edge of the village in May 2019.
Following Rother’s approval of 63 homes being built on the Thomas Peacocke/Lower School site without an affordable housing element, RTC is likely to miss its Neighbourhood Plan target to build 40 affordable homes.
RTC enquiries with ESCC, who currently own the Tilling Green site, indicated that they would look favourably on an affordable housing scheme on the green field around Tilling Green’s Community Centre.
The full RDC Cabinet report on increasing housing supply in the District can be read here.
