ONLY 39% of the affordable homes needed in West Devon are being delivered by the borough council, housing charity Shelter last week announced.

Shelter's Housing League Table, launched last Friday, shows West Devon is failing to deliver enough affordable homes, and is ranked 59 out of 323 English local authorities.

But this week the borough hit back, claiming the charity's figures were misleading. 

Local authorities are responsible for identifying the housing need in their area and for ensuring enough affordable homes are provided to meet this need.

However, Shelter's research has found that 216 councils, including West Devon, are delivering less than half the number of homes they have identified are needed.

Shelter's chief executive Campbell Robb said: 'These figures are extremely worrying. With more than 2,000 households on the housing waiting list in West Devon, the council must work far harder to ensure more desperately needed affordable homes are provided if it ever hopes to meet the housing needs of the local population.

'Independent experts commissioned by the council say 311 new affordable homes need to be built each year in West Devon, but an average of only 120 have been delivered in the last year, leaving a shortfall of 191 homes per year.'

The findings are one part of Shelter's Housing League Table, a new one-stop-shop website that provides local housing data, including house prices, housing waiting lists and levels of housing delivery. The website also ranks councils according to their current levels of affordable housing delivery against their analysis of housing need. These rankings can be found at: http://www.shelter.org.uk/housingleaguetabledata">www.shelter.org.uk/housingleaguetabledata

Shelter hopes the website will provide councillors and the public with information about the need for affordable housing, with the league tables updated annually to enable the public judge how their council is performing. 

Mr Robb added: "The recession has created a difficult climate for house building, but these figures clearly show that West Devon Council is struggling to provide enough affordable homes for those who need them.

'Councils need to do more to deliver affordable homes but must also be supported by significant Government cash. That's why in the current financial climate, and with council budgets set to be slashed, it is vital that all political parties makes affordable housing a long-term top priority.'

But West Devon was quick to point out that the affordable housing figures in Shelter's housing league table were not solely for 2008/2009, but were actually based on a three-year average.

A borough spokesman said the true picture for West Devon was that it delivered 128 affordable homes in 08/09 — more than any other district in Devon — not 120 as stated in the league table. Shelter's figure was based on the three-year average.

The spokesman said: 'As a small authority with little resources we are punching well above our weight in this area.

'This doesn't mean that we are complacent and next year we are planning to deliver a further 172 affordable homes in the borough — again higher than any other district in Devon.

'We don't underestimate the challenges we face. Delivering rural affordable housing is far more difficult to achieve than for urban areas.

'Housing is more expensive in rural areas, housing sites are not as easily available and we have to overcome the fact that large parts of our area have National Park and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty status which can be a barrier to development.'

The spokesman said the recession had had a huge effect on sparsely populated rural districts but the council continued to work even harder to provide good affordable homes for its residents.