industry news
£45m PRS boost for core Northern Powerhouse hubs
A new multi-million pound deal to boost housing in key cities will provide more than 2,000 good quality homes for private rent and create thousands of jobs for local people. The private rent deal will unlock £400
million of development, under the Government’s programme to increase investment in purpose built-rental properties, and will grow the amount of private rented homes in Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham. The numbers of new PRS homes being
built are:
More than 250,000 are homeless in England
More than a quarter of a million people are homeless in England according to analysis of official figures by the charity Shelter. Researchers used data from four sets of 2016
statistics to compile “a conservative" total, with homelessness hotspots identified in London, Luton, Brighton and Birmingham. The exercise was conducted as part of a
series of activities to mark 50 years since Shelter’s founding. It identified a total figure of 254,514
homeless people, based on totting up official statistics showing:
• National statistics on rough sleepers • Statistics on those in temporary accommodation
• The number of people housed in hostels • The number of people waiting to be housed by social services departments (obtained through Freedom of Information requests)
The charity insists the figure is a "robust lower-end estimate", adjusting it to account for any possible overlap and no estimates have been added in where information was not available. The Government says it does not recognise
the figures, but is investing more than £500m on tackling homelessness.
Trauma
Charity chief executive Campbell Robb said: "Shelter's founding shone a light on hidden homelessness in the 1960s slums. But while those troubled times have faded into memory, 50 years on a modern-day housing crisis is tightening its grip on our country. "Hundreds of thousands of people will face the trauma of waking up homeless this
Christmas. Decades in the making, this is the tragic result of a nation struggling under the weight of sky-high rents, a lack of affordable homes and cuts to welfare support." The analysis shows homelessness is at its
highest rates in central London, with as many as one in 25 without a home in Westminster and one in 27 with nowhere to live in Newham. Other hotspots of severe homelessness
include:
• Luton - one in 63 homeless • Brighton - one in 69 • Birmingham - one in 119 • Coventry - one in 204 • Manchester - one in 266
One of the charity's founders, Des Wilson, said he hoped the country would respond to Shelter's urgent rallying call "with the same combination of anger and compassion with which it supported our work all those years ago".
Prevention
Shortly before the release of Shelter’s analysis, the Government announced a new £40m programme to produce innovative ideas and fresh approachs to tackling homelessness, with prevention at its heart. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said: “One
person without a home is one too many, which is why we are launching this new £40 million programme to tackle homelessness and prevent it happening in the first place.” It will fund different projects around the
country, preventing people from losing their home in the first place and helping to ensure that rough sleepers have somewhere safe to stay, he added.
14 | HMM January 2017 |
www.housingmmonline.co.uk
• 995 homes in Manchester • 744 homes in Leeds • 323 homes in Birmingham
Work on the building projects across the three cities will start in January 2017 and is expected to be completed by December 2019. All permissions and contracts are already in place.
Purpose built
National house-builder the Dandara Group is spearheading the project with support from the Homes and Communities Agency and banking giant HSBC. Dandara Living will manage the letting
and ongoing management of each development using in-house teams based within purpose-built facilities at each site. The project is one of the largest private
rental sector investments in the country and will benefit from £45m from the Government’s new Home Building Fund, which makes money available to help kick- start new development and housebuilding. This is the first deal being supported by
the £3bn fund, which it is hoped will kick- start the development of 25,000 new homes up to 2020 and 200,000 in the longer term. Housing and Planning Minister Gavin
Barwell said: “Alongside home ownership, we’re determined to create a bigger, better private rental market to offer greater choice for tenants in a country that works for everyone. “This is one of the largest private rental
sector deals in the UK and will not only create thousands of homes for people in Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester - it will create jobs and opportunities for many hundreds of people,” he added. Sir Edward Lister, HCA Chairman,
commented: “This massive investment, one of the largest private rented deals this year, shows our determination to get builders building and substantially grow the market in this country.” He said the agency is working on a
number of other deals, with builders of all sizes, and is using their investment and land to attract new entrants to the industry.
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