There is a ‘high risk’ that not enough new affordable homes will be built in Bracknell Forest this year, councillors have been told.

Council bosses say affordable housing providers have pulled out of some schemes to deliver affordable homes, or not taken up other opportunities.

The authority's chief executive Susan Halliwell said delivering enough affordable homes was a ‘key objective’ but that meeting the target had been ‘challenging’.

A total of 121 new affordable homes were forecasted to have been completed in the first three months of this financial year – between the start of April and the end of June. But by 30 June only 78 had been completed.

A report to councillors said this meant the aim of delivering enough affordable housing had been put ‘at risk following challenges securing registered providers of affordable housing’.

It said that two developments that had been expected to deliver some affordable homes had ‘stalled’. In both cases the registered affordable housing providers had pulled out.

The report didn’t say which housing developments had stalled. But it said that the council was trying to find new providers. However it added: “Currently this presents a high risk to achieving the affordable housing completion targets.”

Councillors on the overview and scrutiny panel were presented with the report at a meeting on Thursday, August 29.

The council’s director of place and planning Andrew Hunter explained that problems stemmed from a reluctance by affordable housing providers to take on homes in some new developments.

The council requires housebuilders to provide at least 25 per cent of homes in new developments as affordable housing. This can mean they’re rented as social housing, at 85 per cent of market rates, or sold under ‘shared ownership schemes’.

But they have to be provided through affordable housing providers registered with the council. Yet Mr Hunter said that registered providers had been reluctant to take on some of the homes – reflecting a problem seen nationwide.

He said: “The issue that we’re facing at the moment is that the registered provider market are not seeking to take up some of the sites that we’ve secured.”

Mr Hunter said this was ‘extremely unusual’ but explained that one reason for this was that homes in some of the new developments didn’t meet the affordable housing providers standards.

He said: “The first issue where it came to us were flatted developments since Grenfell, the new arrangements are that you should have two staircases. Some of the registered providers aren’t taking on units where that’s not in place.”

Mr Hunter also suggested that the viability and costs of taking on some of the homes in new developments was also an issue. He said this was something the government should address ‘otherwise we’re going to have this problem with delivery because the route to delivery is through the registered providers and at the moment they aren’t able to fund those particular schemes’.