ARE there any affordable homes in Wallingford?

The typical new-build two-bed semi in Wallingford starts at about £300,000. Two-bedroom apartments seem to start about £290,000 – not much less.

The Government’s Help-to-Buy scheme for new-build homes needs five per cent deposit, 75 per cent mortgage and 20 per cent Government loan. Fees on the loan after six years start at 1.75 per cent of the loan, increasing annually, according to the Retail Prices Index plus one per cent. These fees do not count towards repaying the loan.

Alternatively, Sovereign Housing Association has a Shared Ownership scheme. For as little as a 40 per cent mortgage one pays a discounted rent for the remainder. Your mortgage share can increase as your circumstances improve. However, you must have a local connection to the area. sovereignliving.org.uk/buying-from-us/how-shared-ownership-works

Great, but the starting prices are still not affordable for many.

According to several internet sites, average salary in Oxfordshire is just under £30,000, so few of the above-mentioned properties are affordable for the average wage-earner..

In the 1980s, the then government changed the rules for existing residents buying their council house. Until then about 42 per cent of Britons lived in council houses – now it is less than 10 per cent.

Currently, most of our housebuilding is done by private developers. They build one phase, sell it then build the next phase. Thus we are never going to have good affordable eco homes as standard, where we need them. Increasingly, if newspaper reports are to be believed, some are not even well-built.

The energy needed to build these new homes is huge, and wasted if many of them lie empty. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that over almost 40 years, (2011-2050) Oxfordshire needs 54,000 new homes – not the 400,000 being foisted on us.

Reducing the demand for travel by building affordable homes in the right place, built to high sustainability standards would also improve local air quality.

There are innovative solutions in London and Bristol where large containers are insulated, plumbed in, wired for electricity, decorated inside and out and are comfortable and affordable.

These are good solutions for small-scale housing needs, as are straw-bale homes and wooden houses – just not suitable for the numbers currently being thrust at us.

Read more next week in part two.