Developers told to build social housing – because affordable housing is ‘unaffordable’

By Local Democracy Reporter Peter Davison

Developers who want to build houses in Wiltshire will be required to provide social housing rather than affordable housing.

At a meeting of Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet recently Adrian Foster, the portfolio holder for housing, confirmed, “From this point on, any planning applications that come to Wiltshire will have to include social rental houses, not affordable rental houses.”

When applying for planning permission, developers are asked to guarantee that a proportion of the houses are offered at below-market rates.

Affordable houses cost 80 per cent of market rate, while social houses are 60 per cent.

These houses can be offered for sale through shared ownership where individuals buy a share of a home with a mortgage, while paying rent for the rest, or for rent either through the council, or housing association.

Prospective owners or tenants need to be on the council’s housing register to apply for one of these properties as it comes to market.

They need to have a household income of less than £80,000 to qualify – that’s the income which the council reckon an individual or couple need to get on the housing associations.

But Cllr Foster said registered providers were unable to afford to buy houses at the affordable rate to let to tenants at the social rate.

“We have 5,500 people on our register and they can only afford social rents,” he said.

Meanwhile, seventeen houses built for affordable rent remained unsold for this reason.

Back in February, Wiltshire Council announced there were more than 500 new affordable homes “in the pipeline,” and the authority set itself a target to create 1,000 new affordable homes by 2030.

The council’s own register of new housing developments suggests there is a smattering of affordable homes coming to market between now and summer 2026 in Calne, Chippenham, Devizes, Malmesbury, Melksham – where developer Living Space is currently building a 100 per cent affordable development of 53 homes – Royal Wootton Bassett, Salisbury, Southern Wiltshire, Tidworth, Trowbridge, Warminster and Westbury.

They are a mixture of shared ownership and affordable rent.

The only homes to be offered at social rent are in Ludgershall, where 13 two-bed houses, 10 three-bed houses, and four two-bed flats are being built.

Some towns, like Marlborough, have no affordable housing in the pipeline. There, the town council is considering declaring a Housing Emergency.

In August, the average house price in Wiltshire was £333,000 according to the Office for National Statistics – up 3.2 per cent on the previous year.

The average monthly rent, according to the ONS, was £1,032 in September 2025, up 7.1 per cent on September 2024. Wiltshire saw the highest rental increases in the South West in 2024 to 2025.