Maidstone Council Reopens Its Housing Account to Build 1,000 Affordable Homes

Maidstone Borough Council will reopen its Housing Revenue Account on 1 October - a piece of council finance plumbing that sounds dry, but which clears the way for the council to invest directly in building and managing its own homes again, backing an ambition to deliver 1,000 affordable homes across the borough.

A Housing Revenue Account is a ring-fenced pot, kept separate from a council's general spending, that by law can only be used for building, managing and maintaining a council's own housing stock - rent income in, repairs and new building out, with the two kept apart from council tax and everything else the council does. Only a council that owns and lets homes directly needs one open. Reopening it is the mechanism, not the headline - the real story is what it lets Maidstone do that it apparently couldn't, or wasn't set up to, before: borrow against future rent income and invest it directly in its own housing programme, rather than relying only on housing associations and private developers to meet the borough's housing need.

The account opens with 103 affordable homes already in management and a further 63 under construction across three sites: 28 homes at Britannia House on Granville Road, 12 on adjoining land at Granville Road, and 23 at Corben's Yard Phase 2 on Tonbridge Road. The council says plans are progressing for hundreds more as part of its wider affordable housing programme, though it hasn't yet put a timetable or full site list on those.

The move follows a Cabinet decision and lands a week after this year's Housing Delivery Test results showed Maidstone delivered 93% of its required homes over the past three years - short of target, but the best of West Kent's four boroughs, and just inside the threshold that avoids the toughest planning consequences. A council building homes directly under its own Housing Revenue Account isn't dependent on the same market conditions, land assembly and developer viability arguments that slow down private housebuilding - it's a lever Maidstone controls itself, rather than one it can only encourage or condition through the planning system.

Councillor Simon Wales, Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness, said: "Behind every affordable home is a person, couple or family looking for security and a fair chance to build their future. Reopening the Housing Revenue Account gives us another important tool to help meet that need. It strengthens our ability to invest in new council housing, supports our ambition to deliver 1,000 affordable homes across the borough, and helps ensure local people can continue to access genuinely affordable homes for years to come. This is about more than bricks and mortar. It's about creating stable homes, stronger communities and better opportunities for current and future generations." The reopening sits under "Quality Homes for All", one of four priorities in the council's Corporate Strategy 2025-2035, alongside its existing work on temporary accommodation and homelessness prevention. Source: Maidstone Borough Council