22 COMMENT SOCIAL STRENGTH
Patrick Mooney, housing consultant and news editor of Housing, Management & Maintenance magazine asks ‘has the case for an expanded social housebuilding programme ever been stronger’?
Patrick Mooney D
uring the height of council house building in the 1950s, councils built on average around 147,000 homes
a year. In the past 10 years councils have averaged building around 1% of that – just 1,400 new homes a year. This is principally due to a number of Government restrictions and a lack of funding available. At the same time councils are struggling to fulfi l their housing responsibilities and billions of pounds each year are being wasted on providing emergency housing, often in unsuitable and unsafe properties.
Of course this money could be better spent on providing high quality, secure housing at reasonable prices. Instead, councils are housing over 100,000 households in insecure temporary accommodation with many more people living on the streets. 1.2 million households are currently on social housing waiting lists across England, with councils heavily reliant on housing associations to provide them with access to new and affordable housing.
SAVILLS HAS WARNED THAT HOUSING COMPLETIONS COULD FALL TO JUST 160,000 NEXT YEAR ACROSS THE UK
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But the HA sector is also struggling in the present climate. n infl uential group of Ps with a keen interest in housing issues (the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee), recently stated: “The social housing sector is crucial for providing shelter and support for millions of households. The sector is, however, under serious fi nancial pressure, although it remains resilient for the time being. The sector has been presented with massive bills for decarbonisation, fi re safety and regenerating old homes. At the same time, the maximum rent that social housing providers can charge has been unexpectedly capped by the Government.” In order to deal with the fi nancial headwinds, social housing providers have cut the amount they plan to spend on building new social homes. This reduction in new building has been necessary for social housing providers to remain fi nancially secure. However, this comes at a time when the country needs to build signifi cantly more social housing and if this continues it will present a major problem for individuals that need social housing. oreover, all stakeholders are clear that England has been facing a chronic shortage of social housing which must be addressed.”
SECTOR-WIDE PROBLEM
In fact the whole housing industry is in desperate need of a boost as the number of new homes registered to be built in the fi rst quarter of this year was 20% down on the same period in 2023, according to the National House Building Council (NHBC). The fi gures show 21, new homes were registered to be built in Q1 2024. In the same period, 2,20 new homes were completed, 13% down on the 30,071 completions recorded in Q1 2023. The fall was attributed to continuing economic challenges, skills shortages and poor weather conditions. NHBC chief, Steve Wood said: “Our Q1 2024
fi gures refl ect prevailing market conditions. Rises in the Bank of England’s base rate have driven mortgage rates higher, leading to a drop in new home purchases and a slowdown in house price growth. Prolonged wet weather has also hampered housebuilding output in Q1, with the south of England experiencing its wettest February since 13, according to the et Offi ce, and many parts of southern England recording well over twice the average rainfall. espite the negative fi gures, NHBC pointed to some tentative signs of growth. New home registrations increased month-on-month in the fi rst quarter. ,320 new homes were registered to be built in arch compared to ,55 in anuary and 7,090 in February. Q1 2024 registrations were also higher than Q3 and Q4 2023. However, housing consultancy Savills has warned that housing completions could fall to just 10,000 next year across the entire country and have emphasised that more affordable housing is “critically important.” cross the country, ayors of our big cities like ndy Burnham in anchester and Sadiq Khan in London have been urging the Government to greatly increase the investment in housebuilding and for all authorities to be allowed to get on with the building of tens of thousands of new homes each year, for the next fi ve to 10 years.
eanwhile, an intervention from the former Conservative P atalie lphicke must have caused huge embarrassment across Whitehall, as she cited the Government’s failure to hit its 300,000 homes a year target as one of the key reasons for her high-profi le defection to Labour. The P for over and housing fi nance
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