West Yorkshire Mayor convenes regional summit to ramp up affordable housebuilding in Wakefield
Housing leaders from across West Yorkshire have come together to accelerate plans for affordable housebuilding in Wakefield, and across the region.
At a gathering of some of the region’s leading housing developers, Mayor Tracy Brabin led the calls for everyone involved in housebuilding to move “further and faster” in building the thousands of new homes West Yorkshire needs.
The event, which took place on Monday (August 4), saw local authorities, housing associations and private developers all unite to boost the delivery of affordable housing across Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield.
The roundtable came as West Yorkshire celebrates a major milestone, having reached the highest level of affordable housebuilding in over a decade.
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “Having a safe, warm and affordable place to call home is not a nice to have – it’s a basic human right.
“Yet with almost 100,000 households on council house waiting lists and private rents soaring, too many families in West Yorkshire are being deprived of the very foundation their lives need to succeed.
“Thanks to devolution, we’ve been able to back bold, place-based solutions, and we’re seeing the results – with more affordable homes delivered than at any time since the financial crash.
“But we need to go further and faster, uniting all of our housing partners around a shared mission – building the affordable, high-quality homes that local people need and deserve”.
In total, over 6,000 new homes have been unlocked across 29 sites since May 2021.
Despite this clear progress, West Yorkshire still faces acute housing pressures, with average house prices now six times the average wage, and two in five privately rented homes failing to meet decent standards in some areas of the region.
In response, the West Yorkshire Housing Strategy 2040 sets out ambitions to ramp up delivery to meet the Mayor’s pledge of building 5,000 affordable homes over the next three years.
This pledge is underpinned by deepening collaboration with Homes England, and the backing of the UK Government’s £39 billion Affordable Homes Programme.