Julie Cattell: Developers held to account over affordable homes

As chair of planning committee, I'm extremely proud of the number of housing schemes that we have approved over the last two and a half years.

But I am also acutely aware that we can – and must – improve our delivery of affordable homes within those schemes. That is why I asked officers to look into ways we can more robustly hold developers to account when they cannot provide the policy of 40 per cent affordable units in their schemes.

At the moment, where a developer has not submitted a scheme with the policy compliant 40 per cent, officers will request a viability statement to justify this. The statements are independently assessed by the government’s District Valuation Service (DVS). In some cases, this has resulted in an increased number of affordable units being negotiated. However, these statements and the DVS assessments are not available to members of the planning committee or the public.