A SCHEME to help get more families across England into affordable homes has been extended by a year, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has announced.
Following unavoidable delays in the construction industry due to coronavirus, it is estimated that the building of 53,000 new affordable homes have stalled.
The government is now extending the current Affordable Homes Programme until March 2023.
Homes to be built under the government’s £9 billion scheme originally needed shovels to be in the ground by March 2022.
However, the announcement means that housing associations and councils have a year longer to begin building these homes while still receiving government support, giving them the flexibility and certainty they need to keep building across the country.
The announcement follows confirmation last week that the new £12 billion Affordable Homes Programme – which will start next year – will support up to 180,000 new affordable homes, including for shared ownership and social rent.
The programme will lead to a further £38 billion in public and private investment in affordable housing.
Housing Secretary Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP commented: “We’ve listened closely to the sector and agreed that there will now have a longer deadline for using government funding to get these homes built.
“Building the homes the country needs is central to the mission of this government as we prioritise uniting and levelling up the country.”
More than 1.5 million new homes have been delivered since 2010, including more than 460,000 affordable homes.
This follows the announcement last week of a package of measures to support home building across England, including:
- An ambition for the Affordable Homes Programme to fund a 1,500 unit pilot of ‘First Homes’: homes that will prioritised for local first time buyers and key workers at a 30% discount. The discount will be locked-in to the property in perpetuity, keeping them affordable for generations of families to own.
- Allocating £360 million of funding from the £400 million Brownfield Land Fund to the West Midland, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Liverpool City Region, Sheffield City Region, North of Tyne and Tees Valley to support around 24,000 homes.
- Helping smaller developers to access finance for new housing developments by boosting the Home Building Fund with an additional £450 million of investment. This is expected to support delivery of around 7,200 new homes.
- Reforming the planning system to kick start the construction industry, speed up rebuilding and make easier to build better homes where people want to live. This includes making it easier to repurpose more commercial premises without requiring a planning application, builders no longer needing a planning application to demolish and rebuild unused buildings if they are rebuilt as homes, and property owners being able to build additional space above their properties through a fast track approval process.
- A new, ambitious cross-government strategy, to be published ahead of the Spending Review, looking at how public sector land can be managed and released so it can be put to better use. This would include measures for home building and improving the environment.
