Delivering affordable homes

This page is intended for organisations involved in the delivery of affordable housing.

How we deliver affordable housing

We're committed to enabling and delivering genuinely affordable housing across the borough. We do this in the following ways:

Through the planning process

Our planning policies set out our expectations for affordable housing on eligible new-build schemes. 

We are currently developing an Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Document (SPD). This is a comprehensive document that guides our approach to affordable housing. A public consultation will be held on the draft document, which it is hoped will be adopted by the end of 2024. More information will be available on our additional planning guidance page.

Developing our own affordable housing

We are developing several new-build affordable schemes on council-owned sites. This is in addition to those already delivered in recent years. For more information, see our new council homes page. 

We will also be reviewing council-owned assets to see if there is potential to develop more homes. Once this work is complete, we will engage with partners to deliver a further programme of affordable house building.

Supporting registered providers to deliver their own schemes

We work with registered providers and Homes England to bring forward affordable schemes, both through planning policies and via land-led opportunities. 

Homes for local people at affordable prices

We apply a local connection criteria to affordable homes in the borough where it is reasonable to do so:

• For affordable homes to rent, the  Allocations Policy (PDF 970KB) for the housing register will apply
• For all other affordable tenures, see our  Local Connection Policy (PDF 344KB).

In Dacorum, rents at 60 per cent of the open market rate are considered affordable. We will seek affordable rents at this level where possible and within Local Housing Allowance rates. 

More information and contacts

For information on local housing need and affordable housing policies, please see our planning policies page.

If you are a developer/agent with properties or land available for affordable housing please contact us. We can help put you in touch with registered providers with an interest in acquiring affordable homes in the borough. 

We'd also like to hear from registered providers interested in working in Dacorum. We host a Registered Provider Development Forum twice yearly.

Email: housing.strategy&investment@dacorum.gov.uk