The growing price gap means that the key-worker problem is worsening rapidly, warned Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire councils.
An income of more than £35,000 a year is needed to buy an average home.
The two councils found that 80 per cent of local employers reported recruitment problems caused by high house prices, with the public sector hit particularly badly.
A cluster of research and high-tech firms has grown up around Cambridge university, driving up house prices in a city where land is scarce because of the surrounding green belt.
“What is clear is that traditional social housing is not providing for [key workers], especially new entrants to the area,” the report noted.
“Evidence suggests that rented housing is only a solution in the short term, [but] some key-worker housing could include rented housing at sub-market rents provided by a housing association.”
The report called for half of all new developments to be affordable housing, and for planners to require contributions from large commercial developments, as soon as they gain the necessary legal powers. Sites as small as 0.2 hectares, or six homes, should be required to contribute.
Roy Hind, marketing manager of Bedfordshire Pilgrims Housing Association, said: “We got a £5m allocation under the Starter Homes Initiative to provide 220 homes over three years, which gives an indication of the scale of the Cambridge problem. I think this was the largest allocation outside the south east.”
David Roberts, Cambridge’s planning policy manager, stressed homes would need to be sufficiently close to central Cambridge so that key workers would not add to traffic congestion through lengthy commuting.
Source
Housing Today
Postscript
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