ROOF Blog

The government will struggle to build even half of its target of a million affordable homes by 2020 if the housing budget is not exempted from public spending cuts, a housing campaign group says. If the cuts to the house-building budget suggested by November’s pre-budget report go ahead, the number of affordable homes built by 2020 will be 444,000, says the National Housing Federation. The NHF is calling on Gordon Brown to make the house building budget ‘untouchable’ and give it the same status as hospitals, schooling and policing, areas the government said in November it would ringfence while it cut back spending in other areas.

The prime minister has written to housing professionals to reiterate his commitment to housing as one of his top priorities. He said that it was the right time to commit an additional £1.5 billion to build an extra 20,000 affordable new homes in the next two years, and by making ‘tough decisions’ such as reallocating departmental budgets we can ‘meet our obligations to a fairer, stronger and more prosperous society’.

However, the government has confirmed it has dropped its affordable house building target from 70,000 to 55,000 a year in the next two years, despite the additional funding, as it is now paying ‘more of the cost per house’ due to the huge reduction in section 106 agreements and other forms of private investment. The government expects to complete 55,500 affordable homes this year and 56,450 in 2010/11, but only 13,500 a year will be for social rent rather than the 45,000 out of 70,000 homes originally planned. Communities and Local Government refused to provide a regional breakdown of the reduced targets.

The number of council and housing association homes for rent is at its lowest in 50 years, a Shelter Scotland report has found. Building pressure warns of a ‘growing chasm between the number of homes needed and the number available’. It estimated there were 142,000 households on the waiting list for council homes, and said the right-to-buy scheme was partly to blame for the shortage as more than 135,000 homes had been sold under the scheme in the previous decade.

According to the latest National Housing Planning and Advice Unit’s survey on housing, attitudes to new housing developments need to change ‘as a matter of urgency’. More than half of current homeowners (51 per cent) would object to new housing being built in their area, despite continuing home affordability issues where as many as 90 per cent of young people cannot afford an average first-time buyer’s house. By comparison less than a third of non-homeowners (31 per cent) would object. Despite the average house price fall of 22 per cent, almost nine out of ten young people cannot afford to buy an averagely priced first-time home.

Shelter has published a report promoting different ways to increase the development of affordable housing. A range of contributors cover a number of subjects including how to attract development finance to the industry, flexible tenure and the private rented sector.

The government is likely to break its promise to build 70,000 affordable homes a year by 2010-11 according to its own figures. A Guardian analysis of this week’s pledge to build more affordable housing indicates that the government will miss its target by at least 13,550 a year; while only 13,450 of the 56,500 new homes built a year will be council housing, down from 45,000 out of the original 70,000 planned. Figures also show that despite the government building fewer homes the programme will cost more money.

The Homes and Communities Agency says it is ready to begin delivering the significantly enlarged programme of public house building when it takes responsibility of the additional £1.5 billion promised on Monday by Gordon Brown. The HCA will allocate the funds through its National Affordable Housing Programme, and via the existing bidding process which it says will kickstart stalled schemes and help local authorities directly.

Details of Gordon Brown’s plan to boost social housing were revealed in the House of Commons yesterday. He announced he would pump £2.1 billion into building affordable housing, including an extra 20,000 homes to be built in the next two years on top of the 90,000 already in the pipeline. He said he would triple the £600 million announced in the Budget to cover new council and housing association homes – with half the extra £1.5 billion coming from the Communities and Local Government budget and the other half redirected from other government departments including transport, health and schools.

Gordon Brown is expected to announce a proposal that will require councils to take account of applicants’ connections to the area when allocating homes, as part of a multi-million pound plan to build more affordable homes. The prime minister hopes the move will increase stock in both council housing and affordable private homes in the coming two years, while creating thousands of new jobs in the process. Funds will be made available to the HomeBuy Direct scheme which helps first-time buyers into the market, while councils will be given discretion to provide social housing to local people even if they are not considered priority cases.