FAQs
Activity on the climate emergency and net-zero carbon plans.
Sustainable neighbourhoods including bus network, active travel and reflecting the needs of our communities.
Connecting housing to the wider system of places.
Individuals that face barriers to living, including access to housing and employment, including those with protected characteristics.
Communities facing deprivation, inequality, and exclusion, as defined by either specific places, or groups through their shared interests, or collective identities.
Securing £89 million of Brownfield Housing Funds that will help to commence building a minimum of 5,400 homes on brownfield land across West Yorkshire by March 2025.
Securing and investing £3.2 million to increase resources and staff capacity to develop a West Yorkshire housing pipeline.
Continuing to bid for and deliver multiple waves of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and our own booster programme that will retrofit over 5000 affordable homes in West Yorkshire.
Launching our Strategic Place Partnership with Homes England, only the third of its kind in the country, with the potential to deliver up to 40,000 homes in the next 30 years through partnership working.
Establishing the Mayor’s Dementia-ready Housing Taskforce bringing together local authorities, housing providers, the NHS and charities from across the region to address gaps in support for people living with dementia.
What is the West Yorkshire Housing Strategy?
The West Yorkshire Housing Strategy draws together and builds on the existing work of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority in supporting the delivery of housing and improving the quality of our existing homes across the region. It supports and adds value to the work of our five local authorities and our private and public sector partners by establishing a clear mission and set of agreed objectives at a regional level.
What are our Guiding Principles?
The first guiding principle is SUSTAINABILITY. We want to create and grow sustainable and well-connected neighbourhoods contributing to the net-zero carbon ambitions of our region.
Through each of the objectives, the strategy will seek to support:
The second guiding principle is EQUALITY AND INCLUSIVE GROWTH. We want to create a diverse housing offer across the region, reflecting and responding to the needs of our communities. This guiding principle looks at how we enable as many people as possible to contribute to, and benefit from, interventions and access homes within our region.
Through each of the objectives, the strategy will seek to support:
What have we done so far?
The Housing Vision 2019 set out our ambition to create well connected neighbourhoods which support inclusive growth. The vision helped us to steer our work to secure housing as part of our 2020 devolution deal and set the foundations of the Mayor’s pledge to boost the delivery of affordable and sustainable homes in West Yorkshire. Since the election of West Yorkshire’s Mayor in 2021, we have been working to build our housing activity and this has included:
What are the aims of this consultation?
Through extensive stakeholder engagement and analysis of a substantial evidence base, we have developed an understanding of the housing challenges that West Yorkshire faces. We have also developed an outline set of outcomes to meet those challenges. Before we write our full housing strategy, we want to carry out a consultation exercise to check that we have captured the challenges that the people of West Yorkshire recognise in relation to housing, and to ask if people think the outcomes we have identified will help to address those challenges.
What role does the Combined Authority have in relation to housing?
The role of the Combined Authority in relation to housing is to provide a clear strategic direction for the delivery of housing that meets need across the region, aligning with the plans of local authorities and partners. Many of the legislative powers relating to housing (e.g. laws surrounding eviction, eligibility for homelessness assistance and housing quality) are set at the national level, and so the role of the Combined Authority here is to gather evidence and work with partners to make a clear case to central government on what our region needs.
Where powers sit at a local authority level (e.g. planning, homelessness support, environmental health and housing quality enforcement) our role is to support our partners to deliver their legal functions and work with the private sector to deliver the good quality homes we need in West Yorkshire.
What are the next steps for the West Yorkshire Housing Strategy?
The Housing Strategy was subject to a five-week public consultation period between 8th November and 13th December 2023. We will then take time to collect and analyse all responses received as we prepare a final version of the West Yorkshire Housing Strategy 2040.
The final Housing Strategy will be subject to approval by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and is due to be published in 2024.