The Prime Minister
has announced sweeping measures to enable councils to build a new generation of
social house building and end the growing housing crisis.
At the
Conservative Party annual conference, Theresa May announced an additional £2bn
worth of investment for affordable housing.
David Orr, Chief
Executive at the National Housing Federation, described the announcement as a
watershed moment for the nation.
"In the aftermath of the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, the Prime
Minister said that we as a nation have not paid enough attention to social
housing. She is right to make a bold break with the past and commit to building
the homes we need most – genuinely affordable homes for those on the
lowest incomes.
"The additional
£2bn will make a real difference to those let down by a broken housing market.
Building homes for social rent will make work pay and help bring down the
housing benefit bill in the long run by moving people out of costly private
lets.
"Housing
associations have been unequivocal about their ambition to deliver the homes
the nation needs, be that homes to rent or homes to buy. Improved access to
finance and land will see housing associations able to unleash their full
potential, building on the 48,000 homes they started last year.
"Building with
housing associations represents excellent value for taxpayer money; for every
£1 the Government puts in, housing associations raise a further £6. We are
ready to work with the Government to deliver a new generation of genuinely
affordable, high quality homes for rent."
His
views were echoed by Lord Porter, Chairman of the Local
Government Association.
He said: “Councils are working with communities to approve nine in 10
planning applications but it is clear that only an increase of all types of
housing – including those for affordable or social rent – will solve the
housing crisis.
"A genuine renaissance in council housebuilding would increase
housing supply, boost home ownership and reduce homelessness.
“The last time the
country was building more than 250,000 houses was in 1978 - when councils built
44 per cent of new homes. Councils want to get on with the job of building the
new homes that people in their areas desperately need.
“Every housing
market is different and the only way councils will be able to significantly
deliver the new homes we need is if they are given genuine powers to invest in
housing that meets the needs of communities in every town and city across the
country.
“This means the
ability to borrow to invest in new council housing, to keep 100 per cent of
Right to Buy receipts to replace sold homes, certainty over future rents,
powers to make sure developers build approved homes in a timely fashion, and
adequately funded planning departments so that they can cover the cost of
processing applications.”
RIBA President Ben
Derbyshire said social housing plays a vital role in ensuring that we have a
society that works for everyone.
While it’s good news
that the Prime Minister has made fixing the housing crisis a central priority
for the government, he said, the extra £2 billion promised today just won’t
meet the scale of investment needed to address decades of under-supply.
“The government
spends billions of pounds a year subsidising private landlords because of a
shortage of social housing," he added. "They need to dial up the
approach and investment, moving beyond describing the problems and big rhetoric
to delivering solutions and the investment that will make the difference. Warm
words won’t put roofs over people’s heads; we need a concerted programme of
public investment in new social housing across the country and that means
spending a lot more than was announced.”
Brian
Berry, chief executive of the FMB described the plans as an opportunity to help shape a stronger local house building
industry.
"If councils can start to engage with smaller, local builders to
deliver this new generation of council housing, it could further help to
diversify the industry," he added. "This would also boost the
capacity of the private sector through the provision of more public sector
work. Indeed, the increased use of small and medium-sized building firms will
limit the problem of land banking, as this is something small builders simply
don’t do.”
But Mr Berry also
highlighted some significant roadblocks to the Prime Minister’s vision.
"Following Brexit, the serious shortage of skilled labour the construction
industry is already dealing with will be exacerbated if it becomes much more
difficult for EU tradespeople, who have come to play a crucial part in plugging
the industry’s chronic skills gap, to move to and work in the UK," he
added.
"Although the industry must seek to overcome this crisis by
recruiting and training many more young people than we currently do, the
Government must also be mindful and realistic about the continuing need there
will be for skilled EU workers as it puts in place its post-Brexit immigration
policy. Otherwise it will risk jeopardising the delivery of the bold new house
building ambitions.”
Chartered
Institute of Housing chief executive Terrie Alafat CBE said the proposals laid out at the conference were long overdue and had
been issues that the CIH and others have been campaigning on for some time.
"The details of
exactly how these new homes will be funded and just how many will be for the
lowest social rents will be crucial," she added.
"The number of homes for social rent funded by the government
collapsed from 36,000 to just over 1,000 between 2010/11 and 2016/17. Reversing
this trend will be a significant task – how much of this new funding will be
dedicated to building these kinds of homes?
"There is much
to welcome in these announcements and they are certainly an important step in
the right direction, but we still need to do more if we are to finally build
the number of truly affordable homes we need."
