Affordable Housing Securing Planning Consent, 2005-2008

5. COMMUTED PAYMENTS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING

• The 2005/08 survey reported 570 applications for new housing, where the sole agreed contribution towards affordable housing provision was a commuted payment. Table 7 shows a breakdown of those consented applications, by the number of market units contained within them.

Table 7: Applications where only Affordable Housing Contribution is a Commuted Payment, 2005-2008 ^1-3

1. Excludes Information from Moray for all years, and Argyll and Bute and Clackmannanshire for 2007/08
2. There were a further 9 applications for non-housing developments where only Affordable Housing Contribution is a Commuted Payment (2005-2008)
3. Three further applications were excluded from this table as numbers of units are not yet known

• Table 7 and Chart 3 show that more than three-quarters (78 per cent) of all market housing applications, for which only a commuted payment was made towards affordable housing provision, are no larger than 5 units in size. 9 applications were for developments of over 50 units in size.
• Of the 570 planning applications granted consent in Table 7 / Chart 3, 349 were from Aberdeenshire, 126 were from Scottish Borders and the remaining 96 were spread across 11 other Planning Authorities.

Chart 3: Applications where only Affordable Housing Contribution is a Commuted Payment, 2005-2008

• Table 8 (below) shows information by Planning Authority on the amount of commuted payments dealt with for affordable housing provision.
• The first two columns show the total level (for each Planning Authority) of commuted payments agreed on planning applications granted consent during the 2005/08 financial years. The financial years 2005/06 and 2006/07 have been amalgamated for ease of display. A total of £5,083,074 was agreed to be paid by developers towards affordable housing provision on applications granted planning consent during 2005/07. This figure covering two financial years was still less than the agreed £7,512,552 for the 2007/08 financial year. Note that these figures refer to agreements to provide commuted payments. Actual commuted payment provision will be based on the commencement of the development receiving planning consent.
• The rest of Table 8 outlines the flow of actual commuted payments dealt with by Planning Authorities. The amount of commuted payments for affordable housing held by Planning Authorities at the start of the 2005/06 financial year is shown. This is followed by the amount received during 2005/07, the amount spent on affordable housing provision and the amount no longer available. The final column shows the amount of commuted payments held by Planning Authorities at the end of the 2006/07 financial year. This information is then provided in the same format for the 2007/08 financial year.
• Planning Authorities collectively held £4,704,596 in received commuted payments for affordable housing at the start of the 2007/08 financial year. During the following year they took in a further £5,848,857 on applications where the granting of consent included a commuted payment. They spent £701,721 on affordable housing provision and concluded with £9,851,793 at the end of the 2007/08 financial year.
• Aberdeenshire Planning Authority held the greatest amount of commuted payment for affordable housing provision at the end of the 2007/08 financial year (£2,714,770 or 28 per cent of the total). This was followed by Perth and Kinross Planning Authority (£1,464,412 or 15 per cent).
• A majority of Planning Authorities (19) did not receive or spend any commuted payments for affordable housing during 2005/08 (and held no commuted payments throughout this period). Cairngorms Planning Authority is not counted in this total due to the coverage of its neighbours.
• Caution should be used with these figures, as detailed in the footnotes.

Table 8: Commuted Payments for Affordable Housing by Planning Authority , 2005-2008 ^1-2

1. Excludes Information from Moray for all years, from East Dunbartonshire for 2005/07, and from Argyll and Bute and Clackmannanshire for 2007/08
2. Excludes Information from Aberdeenshire on sums received and spent during 2005/06
3. Cairngorms developments have been recorded by overlapping authorities