Disabled Bedford residents left waiting more than 5 years for accessible homes

The report, which was presented to the Housing Committee on Wednesday, March 12, added that there are currently 97 applicants on the borough’s housing register in need of an adapted or wheelchair-accessible home.

But more than half (52%) have been waiting for three years or longer, with 23 applicants waiting over five years.

Anna Robbani, head of housing, homelessness and customer services, told the Committee: “About 3 per cent of households in England have a need for a wheelchair adapted property.

“Within social housing that need is about 7 per cent, and as we know, there’s a limited supply of social housing.”

According to the report, the issue is particularly severe for larger families, as only five four- or five-bedroom properties were advertised in the entire 2023-24 financial year, and 17 per cent of disabled applicants require homes of this size.

Tracey Barrett, team leader housing policy, development and viability, said the plan to help meet the needs for accessible housing is in two parts.

“The first is to build more new housing, and that has two subsections,” she said.

“One is to use the planning policies that we have in the Local Plan 2030, and we have mirrored quite a lot [of this] in the draft Local Plan 2040 to require certain percentages of new housing on qualifying sites to be category two and category three dwellings.”

Bedford Borough Council’s Local Plan 2030 requires that 5 per cent of market housing and 7 per cent of affordable housing in developments of 20 homes or more be built to accessible standards.

Councillor Ben Foley (Greyfriars, Green) said he could see the underlying logic of the Local Plan 2030’s targets, but was worried that they are too low to improve the “historic under-supply”.

“It only applies on sites of 20 or more dwellings,” he said.

“The actual supply can fall well short of the target percentage because of various factors.

“My worry is that they make it seem like we are getting closer to meeting the need than I fear we actually will be,” he said.

The draft Local Plan (2040) proposes increasing this target, with 47 per cent of all new homes meeting accessible standards.

Ms Barrett said that the second, “perhaps even more successful” way to increase supply is to work with registered provider partners in the affordable housing sector to deliver more housing.

“That works very well because they’re in charge of the specification and the design.” she said.

Ms Barrett added that the provision of wheelchair adapted housing and larger houses in the private sector is more of a challenge.

“The other way in which we can meet those [accessibility] needs is perhaps to make best use of the existing stock,” she added.

To help meet the need, the council’s tenancy strategy has been extended until 2026.

This encourages landlords to reallocate adapted homes when they are no longer needed by the current tenants.