Torbay is an incredible place to live and work. With stunning coastline, rolling hills, great transport links, and access to a huge range of facilities both within our boundary and beyond – the English Riviera is a fantastic place to put down roots.
The sad fact, however, is that we are in a housing crisis. Too many households find themselves unable to find or afford a home for private rent; even fewer households find homeownership within their reach. As a result, demand for social housing is high, but with relatively little new supply coming through the planning system in recent years, local households are finding it increasingly difficult to secure a good quality home that they can afford. And without access to sustainable housing, key local employers struggle to secure the staff they need to thrive and grow.
We are committed to doing all we can to help solve the situation. We have secured large quantities of Government investment to kick-start delivery on complex sites. This has started to make a change in the volume of future supply we're likely to see. It also means we can unlock some of our hardest-to-build, brownfield sites that are in need of regeneration. We are also a key part of the emerging Devon and Torbay Combined Councils’ Authority. This will enable us to work with our partners in the wider Devon area to address some of the bigger issues preventing the growth we collectively need. Our aspiration is to use our devolution powers and funding to do even more to unlock housing delivery in partnership with other key stakeholders.
But we need and want to do more. We need to encourage developers to bring forward good quality, sustainable housing schemes that meet local need and prioritise brownfield sites. We need to maximise the supply of affordable homes generated through the planning system. We need to do all we can to support the Registered Provider sector in Torbay so that they can deliver great sites with grant funding. And we need to deliver homes ourselves again, for a range of local priority need groups.
To do all of this, we need to people to join us to help create and deliver innovative solutions that address our complex geographical and longer term constraints but that make the most of the opportunities we have, and work towards becoming a leading voice in the need for affordable housing locally.
This is an exciting time to join the new Strategic Housing & Delivery Service at Torbay Council. We will be recruiting a range of new posts in the coming months, including this Affordable Housing Manager role. We are looking for an experienced housing professionals to help us develop our relationship with registered providers, unlock stalled sites, create a policy framework and help us sustainably and consistently grow our affordable housing delivery rates. Above all though, we are looking for a dedicated individual that can help us provide homes for the people of Torbay. We are looking for a creative thinker; a problem solver; and someone that can help us use every tool at our disposal to deliver the homes our residents need.
If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you. To view the position, please copy the link below into your browser:
https://jobs.torbay.gov.uk/en/postings/8a40efa8-9e23-4919-8d4d-7a448812d41c