A TOWN council has said an attempt by a developer to reduce the agreed number of affordable homes it is building from about 40 per cent to a single house as “outrageous”.

Hambleton District Council granted planning permission in 2015 for 25 homes to be built at the site of the former White House Farm in Stokesley. It is situated across the road from a larger 17-acre development of 183 homes - Stokesley Grange - which is currently under construction.

The plans agreed by the council involved stated 38 per cent of the homes would be affordable. Now the developer, Gentoo Homes, has formally applied to renegotiate this agreement down to just one,two-bedroomed home and offered a “commuted sum” and an overage clause instead.

Hambleton District Council’s planning department has recommended the application for a variation of the S106 clause be approved by councillors; something that has incensed Stokesley Town Council.

The matter is due to be looked at in August by the planning committee.

Stokesley council has sent a provisional response to the planning committee stating it “strongly objected” to the proposal.

It stated: “For the developer to ask for the planning conditions to be changed from 37.5 per cent affordable to just 4 per cent (i.e. only one two bedroom house) is outrageous.”

The town council says the conditions of the site have not changed since the original application was approved. It is understood asbestos has been found at the site, but the council says its existence had already been established prior to the developer agreeing to the S106 arrangement.

It went on to say; “The essence of the application is apparently based on a change in the financial evaluation of the proposed development by the applicant.

“However, the only financial information now available to the Town Council is the above Comparables Report which is now nearly 15 months out of date and contains sales data now at least 18 months old – official statistics indicate that a lot has happened to prices in the housing market since then!”

Stokesley Town Councillor Bryn Griffiths told The Northern Echo: “What has changed with the site? There’s nothing new. We would like to see the evidence to support this.

“It has let local people down if there’s no affordable housing produced when they said they would do.”

In October 2015, the then owners of the site, Northumbrian Land, applied to build four-bedroomed homes on the site after receiving outline planning permission. But the proposal was knocked back by Hambleton District Council, whose planning officers wrote in a report stated the developer had not “provided any evidence” to demonstrate a local need for four-bedroomed homes.

Officers also said in their report there had been “lengthy discussions” with the developers over the amount of affordable housing at the site and as a result they proposed 40 per cent of the properties will be affordable.

One of the objectors who spoke at the planning meeting at the time, Malcolm Smallwood, said he wanted to be sure the developers delivered the correct amount of affordable housing.

“We want to ensure that the younger members of Stokesley who would like to live here and were born here have the chance to get on the ladder.”

The campaign group PricedOut, which campaigns for housing that can be afforded by “ordinary people” stated there was a “worrying trend” of developers negotiating down affordable housing provision, as illustrated by a number of high profile developments in London.

A spokesperson for the group stated: “It is unacceptable for social housing to be the first thing stripped away when a developer's profits look lower than expected. If councils rigorously enforced proportions of affordable housing, the additional cost should ultimately feed into the price developers pay for land in the first place.”

Anthony Lowther, assistant director of Gentoo Homes said: “The landowner for this site had previously secured outline planning consent to build new homes, which included a requirement for 38 per cent of these homes to be delivered as affordable housing.

“As part of our purchase negotiations with the landowner, we undertook a site investigation in order to identify any additional construction costs that would fall outside of standard costs associated with delivering new homes. As a result, a number of significant issues were highlighted, which, based on the current proposals, could deem the site financially unviable.

“We have been in discussions with Hambleton District Council since April 2016 to try and address these issues, including to ensure the viability of the development and therefore the progression of it. As part of this, we have discussed a revised provision of affordable homes.

“At Gentoo Homes we pride ourselves on being a responsible business and we are committed to building high quality, sustainable homes which meet the needs of local communities.

"We will continue to work with Hambleton District Council to achieve the best outcome for delivering new homes in the town of Stokesley.”