A House of Commons committee has highlighted the city as an example of where the wrong type of affordable rental housing has been built.

Evidence presented to the Communities and Local Government Committee by Sheffield Council and Sheffield Homes showed that flats now account for 63 per cent of the council's housing stock.

However, the greatest demand for social housing comes from families who need three or four bedroom homes.

This means there is not enough suitable-sized housing to go round.
Sheffield Attercliffe MP Clive Betts, who sits on the committee, said only 12 family homes have been let to social tenants in his constituency in the last year.

He said: It's a major problem. I regularly get young families with children coming to see me or writing to me and they all have very good reasons why they should have a family house to live in."

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Despite talk of a downturn in the housing market developers in Sheffield earlier this month announced their intention to apply to extend the height of the Velocity Tower, on St Mary's Gate, from its present 22 storeys, to a staggering 36 storeys - making it the tallest tower in South Yorkshire.

MPs warned that the type of social rented homes being built "is being determined by the market rather than housing need."

Government figures show that seven out of ten new homes built by housing associations across the country are now flats.

A hard-hitting report by the committee said: "To the many households either unable to afford to move somewhere bigger to accommodate their growing families, or priced out of the market altogether, the construction of so many flats is perplexing."

One reason for this is the fact that planning policy is driven by the need to have a high housing density, the MPs added. Another is the influence of buy-to-let investors on the housing market.

The MPs also called for changes to the "right to buy" policy, following evidence from Sheffield's housing chiefs.

Karl Tupling, Sheffield Council's director of housing, told the MPs there is hardly any estate in the city which has not been affected by the policy, introduced by Margaret Thatcher, of allowing council tenants to buy their homes at a discounted price.

Since 2004, receipts from right-to-buy sales have been split with the local authority receiving 25 per cent and central government the rest.
The city's housing chiefs told the MPs that in Sheffield this meant that "assets with a market value of over £57m are sold leaving the city with less than £9 million to reinvest".

Strict rules then restrict councils who want to plough this money into building new social housing.

The MPs report states: "We urge the government to make reforms to allow right-to-buy receipts, and any borrowing taken against this income, to be easily and rapidly used by councils to build much-needed homes."
The report also found an extra 50,000 homes a year are needed in the social rented sector.

And the MPs also said that a suggestion from housing minister and Don Valley MP Caroline Flint that social housing residents should seek work as a condition of their tenancy is "not practicable."

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