Reading Borough Council has been slammed by the Green Party as its target for affordable homes has been missed, with just 11 being delivered last year.
The council has a target for how many affordable homes private developers should be delivering each year, which was set at an ideal target of 169 homes in 2024/25.
But only 11 affordable homes were actually completed by developers in 2024/25, falling well short of the target.
The figure was included in the council’s planning Annual Monitoring Report, and was previously reported as a Key Performance Indicator.
It comes as 4,675 households are on the council’s housing waiting list, and reports of rough sleeping.
The Green Party has called for the council’s policy to be for 50 per cent of new homes to be affordable, which was its policy prior to 2015.
Referring to the figures, councillor Kathryn McCann (Green, Redlands) said: “Even in better years council the council is failing to meet the level of need in the town.
“This shortfall comes at a time when Reading residents are facing the issue of rising housing costs, with private rents being among the highest outside London.
“This is a pressing concern as, according to recent data, many households in Reading spend more than a third of their income on rent.
“Reading needs homes that people can actually afford. We need a government that properly funds councils to build council homes. We also need the council to restore the 50 per cent affordable housing requirement and get developers to stick to it.
“This will ensure that new developments work for local families, not just developers’ profits. The Green Party will keep pushing for a stronger and fairer housing policy.”
In response, cllr Micky Leng, the deputy leader and lead councillor for planning, argued that affordable housing delivery by developers ebbs and flows as projects are built in phases, explaining the low figure last year.
Cllr Leng (Labour, Whitley) said: “This council has a strong record of delivering affordable homes for Reading residents, both through contributions from private developments and from the Council’s own home building programme.
“The council itself has delivered 421 council homes since 2014, which includes the 46 new homes which were officially opened on the Wensley Road Estate only this week. We have firm plans for a further 362 new council homes before the end of 2029 and are exploring opportunities for more.
“The irony of criticism from a Green group who have a track record of voting against new affordable homes at planning committee meetings, and against council budgets which deliver hundreds of new council homes, is not lost on me.
“The nature of new housing developments in an urban town like Reading means we are often reliant on larger developments where delivery is often phased. This means we often see peaks and troughs in the numbers, depending on when these phases are built out.
“It is therefore disingenuous, not to mention misleading, to pick out a year where the numbers happen to be low because a number of large-scale developments completed in 2024/25 – such as Station Hill, Green Park Village and Huntley Wharf – just happened to have delivered their on-site affordable homes in previous years.
“You could just as easily point to the delivery of 224 affordable homes in 2023/24 for example, or the 206 affordable homes with council planning approval which were under construction last year.
“The council made a pragmatic decision more than 10 years ago to reduce the aspirational target of 50 per cent ‘Affordable’ housing in new developments to a more realistic 30 per cent. The change has resulted in many new housing schemes being delivered, providing more affordable homes and maximising funding from developers to improve local infrastructure for residents.
“Raising our policy target would do nothing to boost delivery on the ground, because developers, supported by national planning policy, would continue to be able to demonstrate that a policy-compliant affordable housing contribution is not viable. In addition, increasing targets needs to be supported by viability evidence, which is simply not there.
“Reading’s Local Plan includes a commitment to maximising the supply of affordable housing from all sources, backed up by the delivery of hundreds of new homes. In the meantime, the Green group continue to have their heads in the clouds by clinging on to policies which would see fewer homes built for Reading’s families and essential key workers.”
