65. Section 106

“That’s some section, that section 106.” “Best there is.”

The British government defines “affordable housing” as housing which is priced at no more than 80 per cent of the average local market rent. The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted some problems with this definition.

To discuss affordable housing, or rather it’s the near total lack of it, I went to see Rose Grayston, a senior policy officer at the housing charity Shelter. She tells me why affordable housing isn’t actually affordable, and what we really need to do to fix the housing market.

We also, for the wonks among you, chat about the problem with viability assessments and why the dreaded Section 106, under which developers are supposed to build affordable housing, often doesn’t deliver.

Incidentally, there’s a rather weird noise in the background of the last three minutes of the interview. I have no idea what that is either, but you aren’t imagining it, I promise.

Skylines is the podcast from the New Statesman's cities site, CityMetric. It's hosted by Jonn Elledge.

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