Stockport may never build enough affordable homes due to developers’ frequent claim it is not financially ‘viable’ to include them within their schemes, councillors fear. Concerns were raised as elected members ran the rule over revised proposals for 202 flats at the old Springmount Mill site, at Brinksway, in Edgeley.
Construction is already well under way, but developer Carpenter Investments Springmount Ltd now wants to add a further 27 apartments and change it from three to two blocks. While members of Central Stockport Area Committee welcomed the site being brought back into use, they expressed disappointment over the absence of any affordable housing within the development.
The borough continues to have a ‘significant need’ for affordable housing and a 2019 review found there was a shortfall of 549 affordable homes per year. However developers often claim the cost of redeveloping sites - particularly on brownfield land - means including affordable housing is not financially possible.
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Coun Andy Sorton told fellow members it was ‘deeply disappointing’ there was no affordable housing included in the revised Springmout Mill proposals- despite a condition that allows the council to ‘clawback’ cash should the development prove more profitable than expected. Turning to the bigger picture, he added: “I can’t see how Stockport is going to meet its affordable housing requirements if it carries on like this, it simply can’t.”
Coun Louise Heywood also raised her ‘disappointment’ over the absence of affordable housing, particularly given the ‘great need’ in the Edgeley area. “I appreciate it’s addressing a need for housing but not necessarily addressing the need we have in Stockport for the type of housing we have the need for,” she said.
It is far from the only major development in Stockport not to feature any social or affordable housing - up to 80pc of market rent - with other examples including the Weir Mill redevelopment and proposals for a new eight-storey ‘roundhouse’ in Heaton Norris. Plans to incorporate 25 affordable homes within the 573 proposed for the former Warren Street Sainsbury’s are also subject to Homes England funding.
Coun Amanda Peers shared her colleagues' misgivings. "My concern is with the ever increasing housing list we have got for social housing, this is being totally disregarded in the borough at the moment," she said.
“Developers are coming in and making good profits and selling good properties in Stockport but what they’re doing is pricing local people out of the market and I don’t think that is acceptable. We need to take a stronger stance on this or else we will be alienating our residents at the expense of encouraging other people from other areas.”
Coun Peers said the additional homes represented ‘27 additional elements of profit’ for the developer, which should be taken into consideration when weighing up its financial viability.
However, Colin Williams, representing Carpenter Investments, said their impact on the previously stalled scheme was ‘negligible’. “You have talked about viability and difficult conditions, this site stalled because of that, because of the horrendous cost of remediation and groundworks and the clearance.
“And it’s come at a time the whole country was going through Brexit and so on and rising bill costs were forever going up. Twenty-seven units really makes no impact whatsoever on the overall viability it’s the rising bill costs that really has the problem for us an why it stalled.”
He added that build-to-rent developments such as Springmount Mill ‘freed up housing in the local area’, even if not providing affordable homes itself. “It is build-to-rent, it has a rental value but then people who come into that level entry come in from other properties which become available within a local area,” he said.
Despite concerns over affordable housing, the committee welcomed the progress being made at the site and recommended the planning committee grants the application when it meets later this month.
Central Stockport Area Committee met at the town hall on Thursday night (December 1).
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