Rother is facing a socialhousing crisis with majorlow cost home shortage

The report was compiled by Rother independent councillor Charles Clark.

With first-time buyers needing to find deposits of £25,000 to £30,000 in a low wage district largely reliant on service industry jobs, and a lack of social housing, rents in the private sector are high.

Cllr Clark said: “A two-bed rented flat can cost around £650 per month; not many working families can afford to pay that.

“Half of the applicants on Rother’s waiting list require one-bedroom social housing

The so-called ‘Bedroom Tax’ has increased demand from tenants to ‘downsize’, yet we have very little available. “

Cllr Clark, of St Michael’s Ward and also a county councillor for East Bexhill, said developers were tending to sit on planning permissions to await an upturn in the economy, or were choosing to pay a cash sum rather than include social housing in mixed housing projects, and this had not helped.

In Rother, only 10 per cent of the total housing stock is for low cost rent to people in housing need, and many young adults are being forced to live with their parents.

Cllr Clark said 920 lets in Rother are under-occupied and despite Amicus Horizon tenants being offered up to £2,000 to move to smaller properties, since April none had done so.

In a report noted by Monday’s scrutiny committee meeting at Bexhill Town Hall, Cllr Clark said: “Unless there is a complete change in social housing developments in Rother, we will never be able to meet the social housing needs on Rother’s waiting lists.”

Rother Council has said housing completions over the previous year (2012-13) totalled only 98 dwellings. This was a substantial fall on the previous year which saw 177 dwellings being completed.

Rother’s Core Strategy housing target is 362 dwellings a year.

Rother say the low level of building may be caused by the recession which has seen a major building slow down.