Action Groups - Housing

The Calder Valley is a wonderful place to live and over the years has developed a strong and unique approach to life which is both pioneering and values diversity. In housing terms, it is an area of contrast between the apparent affluence of Hebden Bridge and the poor housing and such as at Harley Bank in Todmorden.

The widening gap between affluence and social deprivation must be narrowed so that all members of the community can today enjoy the opportunities offered by living in the Upper Calder Valley.

In recent times social diversity and tolerance in the Valley has been built on an abundance of cheap housing. House price inflation and an excess of demand over supply now threatens that diversity and cultural richness.

The Housing Action Group believes that good quality housing is a basic human right which should and can be met without destroying the natural environment or the overall quality of the Valley as a whole.

Strategy
To offer choice and to promote social inclusion through working with the local community to provide a wide range of housing opportunities that are low impact, sustainable, social and provide affordable housing opportunities.

Actions

1. To Create a Housing Development Trust
To work with Calderdale Borough Council and local communities to create a Housing Development Trust. This Trust could then work with public agencies and partner developers to promote and deliver innovative, sustainable housing development on new and underused sites in the Upper Calder Valley.

2. Exemplar Projects
To create a number of exemplar housing projects that demonstrate the aims and objectives of the Upper Calder Valley Renaissance and to raise the quality of house building throughout the Valley.

3. Housing Strategies
To develop a Housing Strategy that will promote sustainable, sociable and affordable housing opportunities for the Upper Calder Valley. This will require a housing needs and demand assessment, a housing capacity study and a housing market appraisal.

4. Affordable Housing
To help the Council increase the amount of sustainable and affordable housing in the Upper Calder Valley to combat housing demand causing rents and prices to rise and driving low income people away.

5. Adaptive Re-use
To develop former industrial land and buildings to create additional housing in mixed-use schemes, delivering an increased volume of affordable housing.

6. Todmorden and Harley Bank
To encourage and support Calderdale Borough Council in carrying out a Neighbourhood Renewal Assessment in Todmorden, to include Harley Bank, an area where a combination of difficult housing conditions, social, environmental and market factors necessitate a coordinated approach in order to focus support for the local community.

To enable the Neighbourhood Renewal Assessment to be carried out, Calderdale Borough Council to instigate a Renewal Area Declaration and, where issues are urgent, to consider other interim forms of intervention wherever practical.

7. Demonstration Projects
Calderdale Borough Council, working together with the Housing Development Trust and/or local Housing Associations (Registered Social Landlords), landowners and developers, to identify and bring forward a number of mixed-use projects, the residential elements of which could be designed and delivered to offer real choice for local people. Potential sites for further appraisal might include an area in Victoria Road in Hebden Bridge.

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