Paragraph 5.4 of the Consultation Document recognises that there is a housing crisis, particularly regarding affordability. Richborough is of the view that this is particularly the case in Medway with the Office for National Statistics median affordability ratio (household income to average house price) showing that affordability has worsened from 5.73 in 2014 to 8.65 in 2022. Whilst the Consultation Document refers to these issues, the proposed resolution is not clearly stated.
Issues with regard to the affordability of dwellings within Medway are also highlighted in the Local Housing Needs Assessment (2021), included in the Local Plan evidence base. Table 3.1 of the Assessment identifies that house prices in Medway, when compared with neighbouring authorities, increased at a much higher rate between 2000 and 2020. A change of 257% is the second highest of the six authorities included within the comparison and is significantly higher than the South East average of 218%. There are clear signals present within Medway in regard to affordability which should be factored into to identifying the housing requirement.
As referenced elsewhere, in the nineteen years since the Medway Local Plan was adopted in 2003, overall housing completions have only exceeded the housing requirement figure that was in place at the time in only three years, and the three most recent monitoring years have seen the highest deficits. The cumulative under supply of housing since 2003 is 4,955 dwellings.
In respect of affordable housing completions, the annual need figure has not been met once since 2006 (the highest year was in 2008 and still saw a deficit of 305 dwellings) and the cumulative deficit in affordable housing over the 19 year period (2003-2021) is 10,012.
The emerging Local Plan housing requirement clearly needs to reflect both the worsening affordability and the previous poor housing delivery rates. These factors point to the need for a significant increase in the number of houses to be planned for.
Richborough supports the use of the standard method calculation for establishing local housing need as a starting point for calculating the housing requirement for Medway. The solution to worsening affordability in Medway is to build significantly more houses than has historically been delivered and to treat the proposed requirement as a minimum.