A ‘momentous occasion’, said York’s housing boss Tracey Simpson-Laing, unveiling the city’s first new council homes for more than 20 years recently. But is this the start of a new wave of council-house building in York, or just a one-off? STEPHEN LEWIS reports.

STEPHEN Maher and Kirsty Alger’s small council flat in Lucas Avenue is as neat as a new pin.

There is not a speck of dust anywhere, and in the kitchen everything is in its place, the shelves and worktops clean and uncluttered. “We like to keep things tidy,” 26-year-old Stephen says proudly.

It’s a nice little flat. The downstairs bedroom looks out directly on to the back garden the couple share with their neighbour upstairs. The flat has been recently decorated by the council, with a new kitchen and bathroom. Stephen and Kirsty moved in in July this year. “And it was all newly decorated,” Kirsty, 25, says.

City of York Council is an excellent landlord, Stephen says. “The rents are cheap, and you know if you need anything doing, there is a number to ring.”

Stephen and Kirsty are clearly excellent tenants, too. Both have jobs, at Tesco in Tadcaster Road. They don’t earn a huge amount – just over £800 a month each after tax. “But it pays your bills each month,” Kirsty says. The couple are also likeable, tidy – and don’t take the council for granted.

They’ve been together about six years. “We met in town, on a night out,” Stephen says. Kirsty adds: “I was after his best mate, and he was after my sister! I don’t know how we got together!” Before they moved in here earlier this year, they lived in a number of privately rented houses. One was a big three-bed house in Woodthorpe.

It was fine – but too big for the pair of them, and too expensive: £525 a month when they first moved in, rising to £600 not long after. They then moved into a smaller, privately-rented flat. “But there was a problem with it,” Stephen says.

They’d always wanted to be with the council, and had been on the waiting list for about six years. When this flat in Lucas Avenue became available, it was perfect. It is small – just one bedroom, a small kitchen-diner, a sitting room and a bathroom, all on the ground floor. But it is well looked after, and the rent is very reasonable: £226 a month. It seemed ideal.

Then Kirsty got pregnant. The pair expect their first child in March: and suddenly, the flat is too small. “It’s a tight squeeze,” Kirsty says. “With a baby, there will be no room.”

So now, they are on the lookout for a bigger house. Ideally, they’d love to own their own home. But it’s just not possible, Stephen says. They did once investigate the possibility of getting a mortgage. But with the economy and mortgage market as they are, they would have to put down a ten per cent deposit. “We’d need at least £12,000 – £15,000, which we can’t afford,” Stephen says.

There is always the lottery, of course. “Your mum says that if she wins the lottery, she’d buy us a house!” Kirsty says to Stephen. Enough said. Which is why the pair are on the council’s waiting list again; this time for a move to a bigger house – preferably a two-bed one.

Their dream would be to get one of the brand new council houses being built at Lilbourne Drive, in Clifton.

The new mini-estate of 19 two- and three-bed homes is being built with the help of a £1.12 million social housing grant from the government’s Homes and Communities Agency, under the National Affordable Housing Programme. The council is contributing the rest of the £2.6 million cost, and says the money will be recouped over the next 30 years in rental income.

These are the first new council homes to be built in York for more than 20 years – and the authority is clearly determined to set an example in terms of how modern, eco-friendly housing should be built. Each of the terraced homes will have solar panels on the roof, and each will be heavily insulated and have a heat-recovery system. Radiators will be small, and the cost of heating dramatically reduced.

Construction work is already well under way on the first 11 homes, with eight more to follow. The first should be ready to move into next spring, says Andy Kerr, City of York Council’s housing development officer.

At the moment, the development is just a building site. But an artist’s impression shows a street of neat, modern-looking terraces, with landscaped gardens and a few trees.

Children of the council tenants who move in here will be able to use the nearby Brailsford Crescent playground, which is to be upgraded. Best of all, the new council homes are a decent size.

Rooms are comparatively spacious, and the hallways and landings are big enough to take a wheelchair – or even to be able to take a lift, should a tenant need one to get upstairs.

They are designed as “lifetime homes”, says Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing, the Labour cabinet member for health, housing and adult social services on City of York Council.

Stephen and Kirsty would like nothing more than to be able to move into one of these new homes: preferably a two-bed one. But they recognise a lot of other council tenants – or families on the waiting list –would like to do so too. So there are absolutely no guarantees they’ll get one.

There are about 3,000 families in all on the social housing waiting list in York: some of them waiting for a council property to move into: others, like Stephen and Kirsty, already in a council home but needing to move somewhere bigger.

That’s why Stephen and Kirsty are delighted to see the council starting to build new homes again, to add to its existing property portfolio of 7,900 homes. “I’d like to see the council build a few more homes,” Kirsty says.

“There aren’t enough in York.”

So will these new council homes in Lilbourne Drive mark the beginning of a new programme of council house-building in York? Probably not. Coun Simpson-Laing described it as a “momentous occasion” earlier this month when she unveiled progress on the city’s first new council homes for 20 years. But while it was originally hoped that the Lilbourne Drive development – built with the help of Government funding designed to act as a housing stimulus – would be the start of a new wave of council house building in York, that is now looking very unlikely, she admits.

Since the coalition government took over in May 2010, it has slashed by 50 per cent the funding available through the Homes and Communities Agency for such developments, she says.

“I would like to think this is the first of many such schemes. But with the government changing the funding stream it may be more difficult in future to do this.”

There may be an element of political spin here. It is true, a spokesman for the Homes and Communities Agency said, that central government funding has been cut.

Under the National Affordable Housing Programme put in place by the previous Labour government, there was £8.4 billion of central government funding available between 2008-2011. Under the Affordable Homes Programme that has replaced it under the new coalition government, there is just over £4 billion available from 2011-2015.

It is also true, however, that City of York Council didn’t even bid for any money from the 2011-2015 programme. That’s because there are conditions stipulating the council would have had to charge higher rents for homes built under the new programme, says Coun Simpson-Laing – rents that would be up to 80 per cent of the market rate. “Eighty per cent of the market rate in York is not affordable,” she says.

But the council could and should have put in a bid if it wanted to continue with council house building, says Ian Gillies, the Conservative opposition leader on the council, who grew up in a council house himself. He believes, if York is serious about building more council homes, that it should be looking at every possible way of doing so. “It should be more flexible, and less defeatist.”

In theory, the council could put in a bid when the next tranche of funding becomes available after 2015.

Whether it does will depend on what conditions are attached to such funding, Coun Simpson-Laing says. “We might bid if there is a better financial model.”

As of now, though, it looks unlikely. So instead of being the start of a new wave of council house-building in York, the first new council homes in over 20 years may also be the last.

A city with 7,900 homes to manage

City of York Council owns and manages 7,900 homes in York. This figure includes family homes, sheltered housing, hostels and bedsits.

Housing associations, which also take people from the social housing waiting list, own about 4,000 properties in the city.

At the moment, there are about 3,000 individuals or families on the social housing waiting list in York.

While the city council has not applied for funding to build new council homes from the national government’s 2011-2015 Affordable Homes Programme, at least one local housing association has.

Yorkshire Housing, which is based in York, owns and manages 16,000 properties across Yorkshire: more than 1,200 of them in the York area alone.

The housing association recently signed an agreement with the Homes and Communities Agency to build 800 new social housing properties for rent across Yorkshire: though it cannot say how many of these will be in York.

It will also be building 220 new affordable properties across Yorkshire which will be available on a part rent/ part buy basis.