INDUSTRY NEWS 5
Fall recorded in social rent homes supply
The CIH said: “The Government has promised 32,000 new social rented homes outside London in the next five years, but this is just 4,000 more than in the previous five years and will not replace future losses through right to buy sales.” Gavin Smart, chief executive of the CIH commented: “The Review shows the drastic effects that policy changes over the past few years have had on the supply of homes at social rents.” The CIH has called for the investment needed to build 90,000 homes per year at social rents “to address the backlog of housing need that has built up.” It has also asked the Government to suspend right to buy to help deal with the housing crisis, which it says the pandemic “has only made worse.”
still “take action to create thousands of local green jobs around the UK.” However this will require a “revolution in green skills training,” said Ashden. Politicians must commit to long term “tailored investment in green skills, the company said. If they do not, “the UK will not achieve zero carbon by 2050, and many workers will face a precarious future, ill-equipped to meet the demands of tomorrow’s job market.” “The Government has legal commitments to meet zero carbon – this is not a choice,” said Ashden CEO, Harriet Lamb. “But the stop-start history of its commitment to providing grants for making homes more energy efficient is undermining confidence within the industry.”
The supply of council and housing association homes fell by almost 210,000 in England between 2012 and 2020, according to the Chartered Institute of Housing’s annual UK Housing Review 2021.
Despite 70,000 new social rented homes being built, over 280,000 have either been sold, converted to higher rents, or demolished since April 2012, creating a net loss of 209,351, said the CIH. The two biggest reasons for this were believed to be right to buy sales (121,000) and conversions of letting to higher (‘affordable’) rents (116,000). The review warns that the position is likely to get worse due to the pandemic. Only 10,531 affordable homes of all types were started under grant-funded programmes in the first half of 2020/21, compared with 17,980 for the equivalent period in 2019/20.
Calls for skills investment after Green Homes Grant scrapped
Following the Government’s announce- ment to end the flagship Green Homes Grant scheme after only upgrading 10 per cent of its 600,000 homes target, climate solutions charity Ashden has called for green skills investment in its place. The grant scheme was much-promoted to help householders in England insulate their homes but has been cancelled, with the money allocated to a separate insulation fund run by councils. While the announcement was a “body blow” to many in the industry according to Ashden, the Government can
She argued that companies that have taken on the retrofit challenge are “scared of entering the market when the government has pulled the rug out from under their feet too many times.” “The Government has created a
self-fulfilling prophecy of failure,” she concluded. “It is crucial they turn this around through a long term, stable policy including investing in training.”
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