TEACHERS, young families and key workers are being prevented from coming to work and live in York because senior councillors are “failing” to deliver affordable homes, according to the Labour group.

Labour councillors are calling on the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition-led council to rethink plans to “ditch” an earlier decision to establish a housing development company, which they say would have helped deliver more affordable homes.

But council leader Cllr Ian Gillies said the development company scheme has not been scrapped.

A spokesman for the Labour group said just 130 affordable homes have been built each year in recent years, when the city needs 573 built every year. They added that the council agreed plans for a development company in December but no progress had been made since. Labour Cllr Michael Pavlovic called in the decision on the development company at a scrutiny committee meeting tonight.

Ahead of the meeting he said: “Whilst we still support the delivery of genuinely affordable homes, we are hugely disappointed to see the significant scaling back of ambition to address York’s housing crisis. After doing nothing on affordable housing for three years, this decision by the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition is essentially postponing any long term plan to deliver decent levels of affordable housing to the next council administration.”

He added that a lack of affordable homes is hitting first time buyers, graduates, young families and key workers such as teachers, who are put off coming to York due to a mismatch between salaries and housing costs.

He said: “York has failed in meeting the housing needs of all residents and that’s not a legacy I would want.”

But council leader Cllr Ian Gillies said plans for the housing development company have not been scrapped. He said: “When we want to build hundreds of houses it’s in the forefront of what we would consider. It would work on that but not when you are building a relatively few houses. Utterly, unequivocally we have not ditched it, that’s a myth.”

On the lack of homes for key workers, he said: “I think there is a challenge there - one which the Labour group didn’t meet when they were in power.”

Cllr Ann Reid, Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Housing, said: “The Liberal Democrats are absolutely committed to delivering affordable and quality housing in York. By using the Council’s HRA powers, we are in fact accelerating the delivery of affordable homes in the city.

“It is important to note that we are not ruling out the possibility of introducing a Housing Delivery Company in the future, as this route can still be pursued when larger sites become available.

“If the Labour Group were so committed to the delivery of much-needed new housing, they would see that this is the best option for delivering quality affordable homes at pace.”