INDUSTRY NEWS 5
Housing targets at risk, report reveals
“Inherent problems” at the heart of the planning system are likely to jeopardise the 300,000 homes a year target, according to the report ‘Planning and the broken housing market’ from the HOC Committee of Public Accounts. The report acknowledges that the
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (the Department) has made some recent reforms to the planning system, but states that much more needs to be done, with the Department still not having a detailed implementation plan for how it will scale-up housebuilding. The committee welcomed the Department’s aim for a ‘plan-led system,’ but reports that local authorities are strug- gling to produce local plans showing how many, where and what types of homes are needed in their areas. According to the report, fewer than half of authorities have an up to date local plan, and the Department has been “reluctant to take decisive action.” It also reiterates that new housing
developments will need supporting infra- structure in place. While the Department estimates that £12bn a year should come from public sources – with the rest coming from developers – the report states that local authorities often “find it difficult to navigate complex negotiations with devel- opers who are too often able to negotiate lower contributions to infrastructure.”
£142m infrastructure fund released
A £142m investment in infrastructure is set to deliver new homes in growing commu- nities, as part of the wider £5.5bn Housing Infrastructure Fund previously announced by the Government. The money is to be spent on widening bridges, building roads and connecting utilities so up to 8,500 properties can be built.
£95m is to be invested in Woking, Surrey,
which will unlock land to build up to 4,500 homes in the town. An extra 4,000 homes will be built as a
result of a £47m investment in new road links in Truro, Cornwall.
Housing Minister Kit Malthouse commented: “We are driving to create homes, opportunities and thriving commu- nities – and this £142 million investment will mean we can build more of the proper- ties our country so badly needs.”
Khan claims £4.9bn a year is a necessity for affordable London homes
Government. He believes that delivering this number of new social rented and affordable homes will require significant further subsidy however, with construction costs estimated to increase by 3.4 per cent each year until 2023, alongside inflation and a variable housing market. Reportedly, before 2008 grant funding
consistently covered more than half the cost of a new affordable home. The new analysis highlights however that, since the Coalition Government, it has fallen to much lower levels – now at around 15 to 20 per cent – and that a return to previous funding levels is needed. It’s claimed that around 48 per cent of the cost of a new home needing to be covered by public subsidy. Khan commented: “This analysis shows
the vast increase in Government funding required to deliver the affordable homes that Londoners desperately need. City Hall is building record numbers of new council and social homes, but we need far more funding if we are to truly tackle the housing crisis. As a new Prime Minister takes the helm, they must put their money where their mouth is and provide the funding we need to turn this crisis around.”
May calls for housing design standards
The amount of grant funding required to deliver the affordable homes needed in the capital is £4.9bn a year, according to the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan – a figure which is seven times more than the capital currently receives. The Mayor’s current Affordable Homes
Programme, launched in 2016, runs until March 2022. Working with the G15 group of London’s largest housing associations, councils and experts, City Hall has examined how much grant funding is needed to deliver a 10-year programme to follow this, until 2032. Based on the draft London Plan, which identifies the need and capacity for 65,000 new homes each year, of which 50 per cent should be afford- able, the programme aims to deliver 325,000 new affordable homes. According to Sadiq Kahn, City Hall
currently receives around £700m of affordable housing grant per year from the
New design standards to ensure homes are built to a high quality have been urged by outgoing Prime Minister, Theresa May. Addressing the Chartered Institute of Housing conference, she also set out the next steps on the Social Housing Green Paper agenda, with an action plan expected in September. May told the conference: “I cannot defend a system in which owners and tenants are forced to accept tiny homes with inadequate storage, where developers feel the need to fill show homes with deceptively small furniture, and where the lack of universal standards encourages a race to the bottom.”
She also welcomed figures indicating
that, by autumn, a million homes will have been added in under five years – while warning against complacency: “The housing shortage in this country began not because of a blip lasting one year or one Parliament, but because not enough homes were built over many decades.” May concluded: “The very worst thing we could do would be to make the same mistake again.”
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