North Yorkshire Council To Help Troop Allies and Homeless

A council facing a critical shortage of affordable housing looks set to rubber-stamp a £3.8m scheme specifically to provide homes for homeless people and Afghan families who helped British troops in the war-torn country.

North Yorkshire Council’s executive will on Tuesday (August 23) consider adding £2m of the authority’s funds to a £1.8m Government grant to provide three and four-bedroom homes for 11 Afghan families and two two-bedroom homes for homeless households before by March 31, 2026.

The Government funding is the third sum made available to the council over the last four years to provide additional affordable housing for rent in North Yorkshire, much of which has been ring-fenced for families accepted under the Ukrainian and Afghan resettlement schemes.

Using the funds, the council has bought back 42 former Right to Buy council houses in Scarborough, Harrogate, Knaresborough, Northallerton and Catterick.

Earlier this year it was reported people in need of a home in North Yorkshire could have to wait up to three and a half years before they would be to live in an affordable social home, even if no new households joined the waiting list.

Analysis by the National Housing Federation concluded while 10,300 households were on the waiting list for social housing in York and North Yorkshire, only 2,891 new social housing lettings were available last year.

An officer’s report to a meeting of the council’s executive states it would seek to buy properties on the open market, through both new build and buying back ex-council houses, as well as converting properties.

The report states the primary need for properties for Afghan families is in places where there are existing networks and services to support the Afghan community, which will include Harrogate, Selby and Northallerton.

For the temporary accommodation, the priority will be Scarborough and Harrogate, where there is the greatest pressure currently on temporary accommodation.

Buying those properties would save the council about £62,415 a year, the report states, based on the alternative of providing privately-owned accommodation.

However, the properties will form part of the council’s housing stock and will remain as affordable housing, under Right to Buy legislation those who rent a council-owned property for more than two years would be able to purchase them.

Ahead of the meeting, Councillor Simon Myers, the authority’s executive member for housing, emphasised the scheme was in addition to the council’s plans to increase its stock of council housing and significantly boost the supply of affordable housing.

He said North Yorkshire had an obligation to those who helped the British in Afghanistan and as a result could no longer live there under the Taliban.

Coun Myers said:

“People think they are under the usual term of migrants, but they’re not. They are here for a very specific reason.

“In more general terms though, this will add to our housing stock, so when they’ve moved on, the authority has still got them.”

However, Coun Myers said as all the authority’s homes were subject to Right to Buy legislation, it would be very difficult for the council to restrict the right to buy the properties at a discount set by the Government once tenants had been in the properties for two years.

He said:

“The Government is looking at that and whether they put a pause particularly on new-build ones will be debated in the House of Commons. The council is subject to the legislation.”