A council report reveals that at the current prices and wages Islanders receive, 83.2 per cent of residents could not afford a new build home on the open market

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The Isle of Wight council’s housing chief has said its delivery model has ‘ground to a halt’ and ‘does not work’.

It led to the council’s executive being criticised for not building affordable housing at a time when nearly 2,500 Island families are in most need of a home.

Stephens: A mountain to climb At a meeting of the Isle of Wight Council’s corporate scrutiny committee yesterday (Tuesday), deputy leader and cabinet member for housing and homeless, Cllr Ian Stephens reflected on the dire state of the Island’s housing crisis and said they had a mountain to climb.

It comes as figures from the authority reveal the average price of a new build property has almost doubled in the last 12 years — jumping from £189,742 in 2010 to £373,663 in January this year.

A council report concluded that at the current prices and wages Islanders receive, 83.2 per cent of residents could not afford a new build home on the open market.

No progress on Modular Housing Cllr Stephens said the council was in a place they did not want to be and that the ‘ray of light’ thought to be modular housing cabinet agreed to take forward last October has progress no further.

“I see the impression I thought we were going to make has lost traction and ground to a halt.”

Members of the committee, however, felt they had no answers to what the council was doing or had done to deliver affordable housing.

Cllr Stephens said the system currently in place does not work and needs fixing, he hoped, through a cabinet reshuffle and reorganisation of council departments to make more of a ‘robust and sustainable housing unit’ in the Isle of Wight Council and get a service fit for purpose.

Robertson: Not convinced it’s a structural problem However, Leader of the Conservative group, Cllr Joe Robertson, said he was not convinced it was a structural problem within the authority but a delivery one; since the council has a housing company, created by the previous Conservative administration, which remains dormant.

The council also approved the borrowing of £40 million to start building houses in its financial budget for the year.

Ashman: Housing strategy still has the right tools to deliver Chris Ashman, the council’s regeneration director, said it was a problem for both recent administrations and that the housing strategy approved in 2020, ‘on the eve of the pandemic’, still has the right tools to deliver

Cllr Robertson however said it was a considerable embarrassment to the council it was halfway through the five-year strategy and all they could agree was there is a crisis that is tough to solve.

He said the pieces were in place, it was just down to the council’s executive to ‘just do it’ and ‘must take action’.

The matter will be further discussed at the committee as councillors were not happy with the lack of answers they had been given.

This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which News OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may have been made by OnTheWight. Ed

By Louise Hill, Local Democracy Reporter

ShortURL: http://wig.ht/2pjZ

Filed under: Featured, Island-wide, Isle of Wight Council, Isle of Wight News

Statistics again. Average prices mean nothing. The lowest new build house current price would be useful though. I’ve never bought a new build house in my life; I’ve worked my way up the housing ladder with whatever I could afford. I would suggest that it doesn’t matter what new build houses cost because it will probably be those moving up the ladder buying them releasing their cheaper house onto the market for others. Ah well, you say, I can’t even afford the cheapest houses on the market and get a foothold on the ladder. And there lies the problem. Various schemes have been tried over the years and the effect of most of them was to push up the price of cheaper houses.

Anyone remember having to save with a building society for two years putting away the amount that would be the equivalent of the mortgage payment? Or council mortgages that were set at a lower interest rate than the building societies for those already living in the area only? Saving; what a quaint idea!

What the council does need to address though, is the lack of houses for rent not houses to buy. One of the original premise of selling off council houses at a discount was that the funds received would be used to build more council houses. Did that happen? Of course it didn’t, the majority of the monies received were spaffed elsewhere. Hence there is a shortage of council/housing association properties. Along came the banks with 125% and buy-to-let mortgages and the private sector took up the slack until it comes round to today when more money can be made on airbnb. The Island has always had winter lets on a short term basis, even they are now hard to find. There are a myriad of other reasons and most of it lies at the door of our incompetent councils and governments.

Other councils have recently spaffed millions on failed council backed building schemes, so to find that it is now being said that the current housing unit of the council (whatever that is) is not fit for purpose should be ringing alarm bells everywhere.

The article above leads with “The Isle of Wight council’s housing chief has said its delivery model has ‘ground to a halt’ and ‘does not work’.” How difficult can it be to decide what is required and put it into action or is it all just hot air emanating from the council chamber from people who haven’t a clue?

The idea of modular housing as a stop gap seemed like a good idea at the time and to find that the council has done nothing since beggars belief.

The council created four new £100,000 posts at the behest of Mr. Metcalf as well as (years before) Chris Ashman and his assistant on “regeneration”(wasn’t the assistant previously involved in the housing sector?) on similar amounts to address the shortcomings of previous council decisions to downsize the council wages budget.

Something here is suggesting that it still isn’t right.

Yes, all the money councils received was p*ssed away…. probably on nice pay rises for everyone…

Problem was Colin that Margaret Thatcher’s obvious objective at the time was to consign council houses to the dustbin of history.

This she believed would spread wealth throughout the community and thereby help reduce the gap between the rich and the poor.

In her view this objective was not best achieved by building more council houses.

Thus it was almost impossible for Local Authority’s to access funds to replenish their lost housing stock.

For some the Right To Buy was a life changing opportunity, but the fact that most of these privatised homes were never replaced is the rather more lasting legacy of that era.

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