THE Government’s plans to extend the Right to Buy scheme to housing association tenants have already had an impact on the provision of affordable rented accommodation in rural areas, according to members of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s planning committee.

In November, the committee approved a fall-back mechanism for providing five affordable homes in Malham. Originally two of the houses would have been available at affordable rents to local people but a housing association backed out of an agreement to be the registered provider.

North Yorkshire County Councillor John Blackie commented: “There is a real concern that we will not find housing associations prepared to develop in the national park. They just don’t want to lose money.”

Housing associations are so concerned about the loss of income from rents when houses are sold to tenants at Right to Buy discounts that they are already refusing to become involved with developments in many rural areas, it is claimed.

At the December meeting of the YDNPA planning committee, Craven District Councillor Carl Lis gave the example of a developer who was now left with six empty affordable houses and no registered provider. Cllr Blackie said the same was occurring in Richmondshire.

They described the Government’s housing policy at present as a complete mess.

A registered provider has also refused to be involved with a development of two houses in Grasswood Lane, Grassington.

Andrew Colley, who is a member of the YDNPA, and his wife, Cynthia, had made an informal request to the YDNPA to modify a S106 legal agreement on one of the two houses. The agreement required that West Ings would have been either let or sold at an affordable price to someone who fulfilled the local connection requirement.

Mrs Colley said at the December meeting: “We are legally unable to sell West Ings because the registered provider dropped out.”

Mr Colley left the room during the discussion.

Despite warnings about how the decision would be perceived, the majority of the committee agreed to the request that, like the second house, the S106 agreement on West Ings should be for local occupancy rather than affordable housing. This was against the recommendation of the officer but the decision will not be referred back as it was an informal request.

The site in Grasswood Lane was one of those allocated for affordable housing in the YDNPA’s Housing Development Plan which covers the period from 2012 to 2025. Cllr Blackie reminded the committee that it had taken a working group five years to assess and choose more than 40 sites.

“We had great hopes that we would be able to deliver the affordable housing and local market housing that we need to … to bring forward houses for the next generation.”

Both he and North Yorkshire County Councillor Robert Heseltine pointed out that the Colleys had stepped forward in response to that need and had put virtually all their money into the venture.

Several organisations have asked the Government to exempt rural areas from the extension of the Right to Buy scheme, including the Association of Rural Communities.

In a letter to Julian Smith MP, it stated: “This will be an unmitigated disaster for communities in the national parks and in deeply rural areas.

“If housing association rented properties are sold, it is almost certain that no further sites will be available because landowners, farmers and parish councils will not be prepared to make land available at low prices.

“Without such affordable rented accommodation what chance will there be for many local young people and young families to find accommodation near where they have grown up? It will also be more difficult for the elderly to continue living within their own communities including farmers who retire to allow younger members of their family to live in the farmhouses.”

“There is only one way to protect our rural communities and that is for the Government to make it mandatory under statute that Housing Association properties in such areas are exempted.”

Mr Smith replied: “The National Housing Federation’s voluntary agreement clearly states that rural housing associations would have discretion not to sell where a property could not be replaced… I am comfortable with this agreement.”

But it is obvious that housing associations are not comfortable. Why else would they be backing out of agreements involving rural housing developments?

In the Government-commissioned Review of Housing Supply in 2004, economist Kate Barker recommended an increase in the provision of social rented housing partly because of the loss of stock through the Right to Buy council houses.

Now the YDNPA, Craven District Council and Richmondshire District Council are among the authorities grappling with the latest re-incarnation of that problem even before the Government’s new Housing and Planning Bill becomes law.

And, as Cllr Lis warned, more developers will be requesting alterations to legal agreements to avoid bankruptcy.