READING has built more homes in the borough over the last three years than required by Government housebuilding targets.
And leaders of the borough council are calling on more family homes – the majority of the builds have been one- and two-bed homes.
Over the past three years, the Government set a target of 1,598, but Reading delivered 2,080 homes between 2018 and 2021. This is 482 homes over the target and a 30% ‘overdelivery’.
But nearly half of these – 43% (894) – were one-bed properties.
Council leader Jason Brock (Labour, Southcote) and his deputy, Cllr Tony Page (Labour, Abbey), who is also the lead member for planning, to make a joint plea for developers to build more family and affordable homes.
Cllr Brock said: “While we welcome the fact that Reading continues to surpass its housing targets, if you scratch below the surface you very quickly find the new homes being built are not necessarily the homes that Reading most needs.
“There will always be demand for small one-bedroom flats in a major employment hub like Reading, but the biggest demand we have is for family homes.”
He continued: “Some people will fixate on traditional houses in that description but it also includes larger flats, which are completely suitable for family living, A great many families live in flats across the town.
“Indeed, not all houses are automatically family homes.”
He said that Reading needs more than 50% of its new homes to be family-sized homes of three or more bedrooms and that demand is not being met by developers.
“Our own Council house building programme – the largest in a generation – is focused on provision of family homes, but we do not have the ability to fully compensate for the market’s failure to deliver what is needed,” he said.
“The Council calls on developers to do the right thing for Reading by building the homes the town needs.”
Meanwhile, Cllr Page said he ‘very much hopes to see’ more applications for affordable and family homes, and argued that the amount of one bedroom properties present major challenges for the council in terms of ensuring that the correct infrastructure is in place.
