Worthing will stop asking developers to make 10% of homes on big sites affordable to buy. Three quarters of the affordable homes on each scheme should now be for rent.

Developers building ten or more homes in Worthing will no longer have to set aside 10% of them as affordable homes to buy. Instead, the council will ask for three quarters of each scheme’s affordable homes to be for social or affordable rent.

The council’s cabinet member for economy and regeneration approved the change on 5 November (decision W/REG/003/26-27). It was not called in, and the council’s decision record shows it took effect on 13 November.

Updated 14 November: the call-in period closed on 12 November without a call-in, so the new 75% social rent approach is now in force.

What has changed

The 10% figure was never Worthing’s own idea. When the Worthing Local Plan was examined in 2021 and 2022, the government inspector made the council add it, to match national planning rules at the time (position statement, Appendix 1). The plan was adopted on 28 March 2023.

The government removed that national requirement from the National Planning Policy Framework in December 2024. It also dropped the rule that 25% of affordable homes from developer deals should be First Homes. Worthing’s plan never included First Homes, so that part changes nothing here.

The council’s decision does three things:

  • stops applying the 10% affordable home ownership rule in Local Plan Policy DM3
  • goes back to the plan’s baseline split of 75% social or affordable rent and 25% intermediate housing, such as shared ownership
  • tells planning officers to use the latest housing market assessment and local evidence when setting the split on each major application

The exact split on any site is still “a matter for negotiation”, the policy says.

Why the council made the change

The officers’ report says the evidence behind the Local Plan found 85% of Worthing’s affordable housing need is for rented homes (report to the cabinet member, 26 October). Those homes are mainly for people on lower incomes, including working households, who have no other way into housing.

The old rule cut the number of rented homes a scheme could deliver, the report says. “Local evidence clearly shows that in Worthing the overwhelming need is for affordable rented homes.”

The decision notice cites “significant pressures on housing affordability and homelessness”. We reported last month that the councils’ homelessness spending is running well over budget.

Shared ownership is not ruled out. The council says it “remains available as an option” within the intermediate share.

What it could mean on a typical site

The Local Plan sets how many homes on a scheme must be affordable (Affordable Housing SPD, February 2024):

Type of site, 10 or more homes Affordable share
Flats on previously developed land 20%
Houses on previously developed land 30%
Any greenfield site 40%

Take a greenfield scheme of 100 homes, which must include 40 affordable homes. Under the old wording, 10 of those had to be affordable ownership homes, and the remaining 30 were split 75% rented and 25% intermediate. That gives 22.5 rented homes on paper, in practice 22 or 23.

Under the new approach, all 40 are split 75:25. That gives 30 rented homes and 10 intermediate homes. That is about seven more homes for rent on the same scheme. This is our own worked example from the policy wording; the council has not published one, and real numbers will vary site by site.

Bar chart of a 100-home greenfield scheme with 40 affordable homes. Under the old rule about 22.5 are rented and 17.5 are ownership or intermediate homes. Under the new rule 30 are rented and 10 are intermediate.
How the affordable homes on a 100-home greenfield site would split under the old and new approach. Chart by The Worthing Express
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What it means for you

  • If you are on the housing register, more of the affordable homes on new schemes should be for rent rather than for sale. Our guide to the changes to the waiting list covers how homes are allocated.
  • If you hoped to buy through shared ownership, it remains possible on new schemes, but it will be a smaller slice of each one.
  • If you follow planning applications, look for the tenure split in the affordable housing statement of any major scheme decided after 13 November. Our Worthing planning news page tracks the big ones.

Sources