Housing strategies and policies

The council is responsible for producing and enabling the delivery of Durham's Housing Strategy. The strategy sets out the key priorities for the county.

County Durham Housing Strategy

The Housing Strategy contains a series of 'key messages' which explain our and our partners' delivery priorities and approach to addressing housing issues. The main aims are to put people first and to focus on the housing needs of our residents. We want to:

raise standards across the private rented sector through seeking greater licensing powers in order to tackle poor landlords, as well as continuous engagement with landlords and the extension of the Accredited Landlord Scheme for responsible landlords
deliver homes to meet the needs of older people within our communities and supporting people to live independently for as long as possible
work with those communities most affected by long term empty properties - this will include working with property owners and landlords with the aim of bringing empty properties back into use wherever possible
maximise the delivery of affordable homes, both by securing developer contributions as part of new housing development and through close partnership working with Registered Providers and Homes England

Download the Icon for pdf Housing strategy for County Durham. (PDF, 14.4mb)

The development of the new housing strategy was informed by the following documents:

Local investment plan (LIP)

The Icon for pdf Local investment plan (PDF, 2.1mb) sets out the County's strategic objectives for housing and regeneration to inform and prioritise investment. The plan has been agreed with the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), the national regeneration agency for England and Wales.