Good, affordable homes - Our Strategy
- Good quality, genuinely affordable housing is one of the foundations of a good local economy, strong communities and good health
- Oxford has long been one of the least affordable places to live in the UK, with a chronic housing shortage reflected in a waiting list of over 3,000 people for council houses
- Unaffordable housing increases the risk of homelessness, forces people into hardship, overcrowded, or substandard conditions, or drives them out of Oxford altogether
- To address Oxford’s housing issues we must drive up standards for existing housing alongside a focus on providing new homes, working in partnership across the housing sector
Strengths – the Oxford Model where OX Place build and ODS maintain council homes; we have kept ownership of our council housing
Challenges – narrowing the affordability gap; securing suitable sites for new housing within the city; improving standards; rising homelessness
Opportunities – housebuilding combined with net zero standards; improve and retrofit quality of housing to meet landlord and net zero standards; selective licensing powers
Priorities:
- Delivering more affordable homes
- Preventing and tackling homelessness
- Good quality homes for all
| Commitment | Deliver ourselves | In partnership | influence |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Deliver more genuinely affordable housing, including council housing, through our own building programmes, working with Registered Providers and setting clear expectations for private developers |
x | x | |
|
Work to increase standards in Oxford’s private rented housing, using our regulatory powers and property licensing for the whole private rented sector |
x | x | |
|
Put the prevention of homelessness at the heart of Council services and our work with partners |
x | x | |
| Work to reduce the numbers of people sleeping rough, providing safe accommodation with access to support services to help with complex issues | x | x | |
|
Be a good landlord and continue to invest in improving the quality of council homes |
x | ||
| Continue our work with neighbouring councils to enable people on our housing list access to new housing developments adjacent to Oxford's administrative boundary | x | x | |
|
To lobby central government for local authority powers to introduce rent controls and controls around the short-term let market, to address spiralling unaffordability in the private rented sector |
x | x | |
| As part of the planning process, secure funding from major developments that can go towards improving infrastructure and benefitting the community | x |
Measuring progress
In order to measure progress we will report annually on three key measures. These will be finalised in a separate report to follow in the next few weeks.
