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Affordable housing starts up 10%, according to latest figures
Affordable housing starts in England increased by 10% in 2021-22 as the sector appears to have recovered from a drop-off last year that was caused by coronavirus restrictions, the government’s annual supply figures show.
The latest figures reveal that there were 63,228 starts on site in England in the 12 months up to 31 March 2022, compared to 57,693 in the previous year – a 10% increase.
Of these, social rent units increased by 151 to 6,561 and London Affordable Rent (LAR) increased from 5,518 to 8,284. This equates to a 2% rise and a 50% rise respectively, compared to 2020-21.
It is the highest level for both tenures across a six-year period for which there is comparable data.
Affordable rent starts dropped more than 5,000 to 14,017, while intermediate rent starts remained broadly the same at 2,502.
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Shared ownership starts increased by more than 1,000 units, and 100 more affordable homeownership units were started since last year, to reach 974.
For the first time, data on First Homes made the release, with 119 starts of this tenure.
In total for the past 12 months, affordable rent and shared ownership accounted for 44% of all new affordable housing starts, compared with 58% in the previous year and 70% in 2019-20.
In part, this is due to the increase in the number of starts for which tenures were unknown before 2019-20, following the introduction of units delivered under the strategic partnerships programme. This is because Homes England’s funding of these units is based on the whole development programme in comparison to a scheme-by-scheme basis.
These units will have their tenures confirmed at a later stage.
The number of affordable homes completed increased 13% to 59,175, up from 52,100 in the previous year.
Of those, completions for rent remained at the same level of 65% year-on-year.
Section 106 planning agreements with developers funded 44% of all affordable homes delivered, compared to 47% in 2020-21. The total number of new build homes delivered in England increased slightly by 3% to 92%.
The regional data shows that London was the area with the highest delivery of new affordable housing in 2021-22, followed by the South East.
But drilling down into the regional trends by tenure provides a more complex picture.
On social rent, more than half (57%) of new social rent homes in 2021-22 were in just three regions: the South East, the West Midlands and the South West. Until 2017-18, most delivery of new social rent was in London and the South East.
On affordable rent, both the South East and the East of England have delivered more homes than London since 2016-17 and 2017-18, respectively.
At the same, there were more affordable rent homes delivered in the North West than in London this year, in 2016-17 and in 2017-18.
Both of these trends coincided with the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) introduction of LAR as a tenure in 2017-18. In the past 12 months, the GLA delivered 3,080 homes in this tenure.
There were a total of 53,487 new build affordable homes completed in 2021-22, the highest number since 2014-15.
These were supplemented by 4,605 acquisitions of existing stock and 1,083 homes for which there is currently no information on whether they are new build or acquisitions.
The 53,487 figure represents an increase of 0.2% on the existing 24.87 million homes in England up to March this year.
This dataset also shows that 81% of all affordable homes were delivered by private registered providers, with local authorities delivering 13% and non-registered providers 3%.
The report notes that there is no provider information on the remaining 3% of all units, but these figures have remained similar to the previous five years.
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