Portsmouth Council sells block to developer - but won't insist on affordable housing condition

Labour leader Cal Corkery said the council had an opportunity to force PVD1 Ltd – whose 163-flat Middle Street proposal included none – to provide dozens of its new homes at cheaper rates, in line with council policy.

‘Despite our planning policies, [developers] use a loophole in national policy [to not provide affordable housing] and in most instances, where land is privately-owned, there’s very little that the council can do,’ he said, saying there was a ‘desperate need’ in the city.

‘This instance clearly is different because the council owns this land and can do something about it.’

Anne Cains, the council’s head of acquisition and disposal, said any condition of the sale would be ‘unenforceable’ and that such conditions would need to be approved through its planning powers.

Members of the council’s planning committee narrowly agreed a year ago to approve the PVD1 Ltd scheme for the site.

However, in August the planning inspectorate turned down the scheme as no agreement had been reached on measures to mitigate the ‘likely significant adverse effects’ it would have on the ‘integrity’ of protected environmental sites around the city.

No new application has been submitted for the site but the council’s leader said he supported proposals to build flats on the site rather than any potential student development, despite the lack of any affordable housing.

‘We have been talking to them [PVD1 Ltd] for a long time, given we own the freehold and they are the leaseholders,’ councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson said last week. ‘I’m pleased it’s not for students and instead is aimed at normal residential housing which is an area which is not well served by the market.

‘Income from the buildings is very minimal so purely looking at it financially, this is the right thing to do.’

Approving the sale of its Middle Street properties on Tuesday (November 22), the cabinet said that, due to the need for an application to go through the planning system, the council could pursue the matter through other means.

‘Cllr Corkery has asked us to put the cart before the horses and wants us to tie the hands of the developer before we even get into a planning process,’ cabinet member for planning policy, and a former planning committee chairman, Lee Hunt said.

‘If we do that there’s a risk of devaluing the land and getting less bang for your buck and we could end up with even less housing.’

The council’s Middle Street property was let out in the aftermath of the Second World War on long leaseholds at now nominal rents for industrial use, with a minimum of 33 years remaining on each.

The majority of these leaseholds, the council said, have already been sold to the developer and generate an income of less than £300 a year.

Following the approval of the cabinet, council officers will now negotiate the final terms of their sale.

After the meeting, Cllr Corkery said he was ‘disappointed’ by the cabinet’s decision not to support his suggestion.

‘Local, democratically-agreed planning policies require 30 per cent affordable housing on sites of this size but we know there are legal loopholes developers use to get out of this,’ he said. ‘As landowner, the council could have decided to only sell the site with a condition that any development has to provide affordable housing but despite our pleas the Lib Dems have chosen not to do this.’