RYEDALE District Council is to investigate “land banking” in the district.

A report into the amount of land which has planning permission, but remains undeveloped, was suggested by Cllr Luke Ives at a meeting of the policy and resources committee on Thursday.

The request was prompted by a discussion about housing and last week’s national Budget.

Cllr Paul Andrews said: “Steps need to be taken to find out how much land in this district has planning permission, but is not being developed by developers.”

Cllr Ives, chairman of the committee, said there was a plan, announced in the Budget, to look at keeping a record of all land which is being effectively banked by developers. He added: “I’m going to push for a report to us about land banking.”

The meeting was presented with the annual housing strategy report, which revealed that Ryedale is in the top three per cent of English local authorities for housing services, and it has achieved a gold standard in the area.

The report also revealed that 52 affordable homes have been completed in the district in the last 12 months, with planning permission for 170 more.

Affordable in this context means homes for social rent or intermediate tenures.

There was a total of 321 completed homes in 2016/17, the report added.

The report was welcomed by councillors, though some urged caution. Cllr Mike Potter said that the figure of 52 affordable homes was 16 per cent of the total homes completed.

“We should be looking at about 30 per cent affordable homes,” he said. “We need to make sure this council is building what’s needed in Ryedale and not what developers want.”

Cllr Linda Cowling said that the figure is skewed because small developments under 10 homes have no requirement to include affordable homes. “Ryedale is in the top three per cent among all authorities in England,” she said, praising the work of officers. “It really is a fabulous achievement. Well done to them.”

The housing strategy report also outlined a number of other achievements made in the past 12 months.

These include successfully housing four Syrian refugee families, preventing 207 households from becoming homeless, completing 52 disabled facilities grants totalling £308,182 and reducing homeless applications 44 per cent from the same period the previous year. The authority also agreed that Horton Housing manage the Tara Park traveller site, and received £420,000 for community-led housing projects.