Housing, Heritage and Regeneration

Well-connected neighbourhoods with good quality homes, in places where people want to live.

Aim

Well-connected neighbourhoods which support inclusive growth with good quality homes, in places where people want to live.

What success will look like

Enabling housing growth and supporting our places to maximise their potential through effective place making that will leverage private sector investment. This approach recognises that people are not bound by geographies when choosing where they want to live incorporating other factors such as transport, access to jobs, education and community.

Priority projects delivered in our Spatial Priority Areas, urban centres and growth zones through the West Yorkshire Strategic Housing Pipeline which meet the needs of our communities.

More small and medium sized construction businesses being used to bring forward brownfield sites in urban centres and existing residential areas.

Strong strategic relationships with Homes England, Housing Associations and private developers with greater investment in housing which delivers well designed homes and neighbourhoods, a good quality choice across tenures and greater use of modern methods of construction.

Strengths

  • Unique town and city centres with strong industrial heritage
  • Great culture and countryside with a high quality of life offer
  • Planning permissions in place to deliver 50,000 homes across West Yorkshire
  • Relatively affordable housing market across most of the region
  • Continuous increase in levels of housing delivery over the last 5 years
  • Significant transport investment planned for the region that will unlock housing growth

Challenges

  • Development is not evenly spread across the region as lower value areas are less attractive for developers
  • Planning permissions for 30,000 homes in place on brownfield sites, which can be expensive to deliver due to lower viability
  • Complex major development sites requiring infrastructure, remediation and land assembly delaying delivery of new homes
  • Affordable housing needs are increasing with rising levels of homelessness and in work poverty
  • Housing development often has car dependency built in, through its location, density or design
  • High proportions of existing homes are poor quality and poorly insulated, built pre-war, making them expensive to repair and keep warm
  • A falling number of small and medium sized developers contributing to housing delivery

Policies and strategies