With almost 7,000 people waiting for social housing in Dorset, demand vastly outstrips supply. As more homes are built, will enough of them actually be affordable?
In Dorset, where the average home costs around £340,000, the provision of affordable housing matters enormously. Why, then, do affordable homes still seem so hard to come by, despite plans to build far more housing?
What is affordable housing?
Affordable housing includes homes for social or affordable rent, as well as intermediate housing for people who cannot afford to buy or rent at full market prices. This can include shared ownership and other below-market schemes. Shared ownership enables people to buy a share of a home, usually between 40 and 60 per cent, and paying rent on the remainder. Often these are leasehold arrangements, but they do help people get onto a property ladder.
Housing associations or local authorities also maintain homes for social rent, which residents apply for via the housing register.
At the time of writing there were 6,783 people on the Dorset housing register – and 23,434 social housing units. There’s a huge demand for one-bedroom homes, reflecting issues like homelessness and relationship breakdown. Dorset Council’s Monitoring Report shows that demand for social housing continues to far outstrip supply. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, the number of homes let was equivalent to one-sixth (17 per cent) of the number of people on the register. As a result, people can wait several years on a housing register, and could be stuck in temporary accommodation for a long time. There is a clear need for more social rentals, but they are not being built fast enough to cope with demand.
Dorset Council publishes annual monitoring data to show both the number of new houses completed and affordable homes. The table below shows the numbers of new affordable homes in Dorset over the past four years.
Since 2019, more than 8,000 houses have been built – the county currently averages 1,900 homes a year. In recent years, affordable homes have typically accounted for around a quarter to a third of annual housing. NDorset now has a much bigger annual housing target of 3,248 units, so will there be a focus on constructing truly affordable homes to keep up with the demand?
Even where affordable housing is stipulated as a condition of planning permission, the eventual number can sometimes be renegotiated as developers argue that this requirement is no longer financially viable.
No available data on individual sites
A recent request to reduce the number of affordable homes on land south of Gillingham was approved by the Northern Planning Committee. Dorset Life asked Dorset Council how many affordable homes were affected by similar developer negotiations each year: ‘Requests to amend affordable housing levels are subject to viability testing, which Dorset Council, as the local planning authority, independently verifies. Each request is considered on a site-by-site basis. We do not hold data on these requests in a way that enables reporting by individual site.’
When the updated National Planning Policy Framework was published, there had been widespread concern that the Government would remove the requirement for developers to provide affordable housing on medium-sized developments (nine to 49 homes), a move that would have had a significant impact in Dorset. However, the needs of rural areas have been recognised, and developers are still required – at least at the application stage – to include affordable homes in both medium and large developments.
Who gets the affordable housing?
In Dorset, affordable housing is subject to a Section 106 agreement which states who is eligible to apply. Homes for social rent are made available through the housing portal at Dorset Home Choice and the various registered providers such as Magna and Aster. Usually, potential renters and some shared home purchasers must have a local connection. There is also a priority scale so that people with an urgent need are considered first. Some homes, particularly those owned by Community Land Trusts, have specific hyper-local requirements such as a connection to a village for new occupiers.
However, not all the registered providers with a significant Dorset portfolio are buying and renting the affordable homes.
For example, the Saxon Grange housing development in Shaftesbury is being led by Manchester-based Park Properties Housing Association (PPHA), a relative newcomer in Dorset, but with a prolific nationwide portfolio. Does this mean all the houses will go to Mancunians? Dorset Life spoke to PPHA whose representative confirmed they had 32 homes at Saxon Grange – six of which are flats – in a mix of shared ownership and social housing. When asked who was eligible for this housing a spokesperson said: ‘All the social is being dealt with through Dorset Council. The shared ownership is available nationally.’
Naturally, new residents may be Dorset-based. However, shared ownership creates an opportunity for people out of the county who are looking for work in places where there are critical vacancies such as health and social care, and prison work. Another housing association, Bournemouth Churches Housing Association* – known for its work in finding homes for vulnerable people – has recently purchased housing in Sturminster Newton. BCHA confirmed that their housing is made available on the Dorset Council housing portal.
Dorset’s social housing problem is summed up most clearly in that figure of more than 6,800 people on the housing register.
‘We can’t get our hands on [social] housing fast enough,’ a Dorset-based housing manager told Dorset Life.
*BCHA is currently re-branding as the words ‘Bournemouth’ and ‘church’ no longer reflect their work on addressing the housing crisis.
