Wiltshire Council urges housing associations to halt disposals over fears of losing rural affordable housing

Wiltshire Council has passed a motion calling on GreenSquareAccord (GSA) to halt the demolition and disposal of homes on the open market and instead invest in its older stock in the local area.

Cllr Nick Botterill, cabinet member for finance, development management and strategic planning, said that if the housing association were looking to sell properties, “they should have spoken to us as the strategic housing body and planning authority.”

Leader of Wiltshire Council Richard Clewer warned that social landlords must not sell social homes in rural settings as it is “undermining the social fabric of villages, which is utterly unacceptable”.

He said it was ”far too hard to live in a village as it is, in terms of price, you need social rent housing, not affordable to be able to house the people who provide domiciliary care and other services.” He emphasised that the disposal of rural social housing “is a really serious problem”. 

He added that when housing providers dispose of a social home in a rural area, “they reprovision in the nearest town, not in the village”, adding that it is harder to redevelop in a rural area than in an urban one. 

GSA cited the high cost of upgrading some properties to EPC C as a reason behind the sale of some of its homes.

Clewer stated that when the council retrofitted its properties to improve their EPC ratings, it initially focused on the most challenging houses. “We applied for more funding and we got them sorted because we knew they were going to be the hardest,” Clewer said.

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Botterill and Clewer said that they did not have a specific figure for how many homes GSA plans to sell in Wiltshire. Botterill said 150 homes had been referenced, but that he was unclear if all of these were located in Wiltshire.

GSA said it could not provide this information.

However, Botterill noted that after a meeting with GSA’s chief executive, Ruth Cooke, on Friday last week, the housing association has committed to providing a precise number of homes they intend to sell.

The motion also mentioned “a number of cases” where Aster tenants have been removed from their homes so that demolition can take place before properties are rebuilt for sale on the open market.

Botterill added that the disposals are at odds with Wiltshire Council’s goal of increasing the supply of local council homes. Currently, the council is delivering 100 new council homes per year on average.

A GSA spokesperson said: “We are committed to working with Wiltshire Council and we are happy to address any concerns or questions the council has regarding our homes and services.”

GSA stated that in 2023/24, it invested £71.2m on repairs and improvements, including new kitchens and bathrooms, repairing roofs, replacing windows and making homes more energy efficient.

The housing association said it had produced a full report on the condition of its properties, which has informed its long-term investment plan and will see the landlord spend £420m on customers’ homes over the next five years.

The statement added: “We have a legal and ethical responsibility to make sure our homes are of the right quality and standards and meet the needs of our customers into the future. This includes ensuring they are energy efficient and as cheap to run as possible.

”To achieve this we must make sensible, sustainable decisions about our investments. In some instances, the cost of investing to bring a property up to the required standards cannot be justified and, in those cases, the responsible decision is to sell that property.

”This usually involves properties which are vacant but there are times when a home will be occupied. When this happens, we provide tailored support and compensation for impacted customers and help them to move on to suitable alternative accommodation.

”Taking a proactive approach to sell properties where the level of investment is not sustainable is a standard and responsible part of the work of housing associations.

“Like all not-for-profit social housing providers, we exist to provide housing at significantly below market rents to support the many people who can’t buy their own home or access a home through the private rental market.

”We have a limited pot of funding with which we are required to maintain the 25,000 homes we own and manage across England, and our responsibility and duty is to all our customers. We must operate responsibly and sustainably so that we can continue to provide good quality, affordable homes and play a central role in managing the impact of the housing crisis.”

An Aster spokesperson said: “In a very small number of cases, we will sometimes sell a property that is unsustainable. This enables us to reinvest money from the sale into building more modern, energy efficient, affordable homes that better meet our customers’ needs.

“We support any customer affected by this throughout the entire process, providing them with suitable alternative accommodation and assistance with moving to their new home.”