AN acute shortage of affordable housing in the Alton area has led to an urgent appeal for suitable building sites.

With some 399 individuals and families desperate for low- cost housing in Alton alone and with prices soaring, demand is far outstripping supply.

According to housing policy manager Julia Potter, EHDC has a budget this year of £3m for affordable housing with half as much again coming from the Housing Corporation. It will result in a new-build programme within the district of 100 homes but will barely touch the Joint Housing Register of around 2,000.

With Alton top of the list in terms of affordable housing need, town council leader Peter Whitmarsh, was not alone in believing that this was "not good enough".

This emotive issue attracted a big audience to this month's meeting of EHDC's NW area community committee meeting. According to Julia Potter, affordable housing is defined as "assisting householders who are in housing need but cannot afford to buy or rent on the open market."

Citing the £130,000 price-tag on an ex-council house in Petersfield as an example of escalating prices, Ms Potter said it was little wonder demand was rising. A main stumbling block was shortage of land.

Housing Association housing stock in the district currently totals 5,000 units and charitable status demands any profit must be ploughed back into the organisation.

"The reason Housing Associations can charge lower rents is that they receive public subsidy when they develop new housing," said Ms Potter. The funding may come either from the Housing Corporation, a regulatory body with whom they have to be registered, or the local authority, with some 45 per cent of the scheme cost being met in this way.

There was also a limited role, she said, for alternative tenure such as below-market renting, shared ownership and housing for key workers which should not be restricted to first occupiers but retained for further householders in need.

Other ideas had been to encourage private landlords to provide more rented property, along with the sub-division of existing dwellings into smaller units, and the re-use of space above shops for housing.

Local planning policy had enabled the council to secure a 30 per cent low-cost quota as part of a large scale development, a recent example of which could be seen at Anstey Road in Alton. Here McAlpine Homes had provided 11 affordable homes.

Development of rural exception sites, as in Church Lane, Ropley, where ten units should be ready by Christmas was a practice which Four Marks councillor Anne Storey suggested should be extended to the towns.

EHDC had "a good track record" in trying to meet housing need but Four Marks (38), Froyle (26), Bentley (22) and Selborne (20) figured high on the housing need register.

Committee chairman Jerry Janes said: "East Hampshire officers have been out looking for potential development sites.

"We have a responsibility to our youngsters - if they were born into the community then they should not be forced to move out."