A new partnership has been launched to tackle the housing crisis by speeding up house building in York and North Yorkshire.
Mayor David Skaith was joined by Pat Ritchie, chair of Homes England, the government’s housing and regeneration agency, to officially launch the Strategic Place Partnership in York yesterday (Tuesday).
The partnership also includes City of York Council, North Yorkshire Council and York and North Yorkshire Housing Partnership.
The partnership will put a priority on affordable housing. The agreement will use three key objectives to unlock sites:
- It will create stronger working relationships with major site owners such as the Ministry of Defence and Network Rail, and develop a collaborative action plan on delivering affordable housing
- It commits to speeding up delivery of ‘investment ready’ sites, such as land already granted planning permission, and stalled sites.
- It will also strive to ensure all new homes are built using methods to support the region’s goal of achieving carbon negative by 2040.
Mr Skaith said: “Across York and North Yorkshire, we are in the midst of a housing crisis, with some of the most expensive homes in the UK. With over 10,000 households on housing waiting lists in our region, we must act now.
“We need to build the right homes in the right places, ensuring people in all our towns, cities and villages can stay and live in our region.
“Bringing together Homes England, our councils and key organisations through the York and North Yorkshire Strategic Place Partnership will help us all deliver on our shared vision to get building.”
Pat Ritchie said in York they were “already working with partners including Network Rail, the City of York Council and the National Railway Museum to drive forward the transformation of York Central – one of the UK’s largest brownfield sites – into new homes, cultural spaces and infrastructure.”
