However, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has announced that the scheme to help get more families across England into affordable homes has been extended by a year, 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, today’s 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.
This follows the announcement last week of a package of measures to support home building across England, including further ambition for the Affordable Homes Programme to fund a 1,500 unit pilot of ‘First Homes’: homes that will be 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.
Additionally, £360 million of funding will be allocated 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.
New measures will also be put in place to help 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 the delivery of around 7,200 new homes.
Reforming the planning system to kick start the construction industry, speed up rebuilding and make it 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.
Robert Jenrick, Housing Secretary, said: “Today I am announcing that we are giving more flexibility to housing associations and councils to help them deliver affordable homes. 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.”
