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Government confirms £12bn affordable homes cash will be spent over five years
The government has issued clarification assuring that the full £12.2bn allocated under the Affordable Homes Programme will be spent over the next five years, following an announcement yesterday which appeared to extend it to 2028/29.
Combined with £700m of unspent money from the previous programme and £2bn announced by Theresa May in 2018, this amounted to a £12.2bn programme.
But in documents which followed prime minister Boris Johnson’s ‘build, build, build’ speech, it was said the programme would support the development of new homes over an “eight-year period”.
This appeared to contradict prior statements, including a written answer given by housing minister Chris Pincher last week which said that all of the money would be spent by 2025/26.
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Yesterday evening, the government confirmed that all the money would be spent within this period, with the majority of the 180,000 homes also completed within this timeframe.
However, it said that the £2bn announced by Ms May would fund longer-term developments which may not complete until 2029.
A government spokesperson said: “The £12bn will be spent over the next five years and this will deliver up to 180,000 new affordable homes. The majority of homes will be built within the first five years and the rest by 2028/29. This is in line with what was announced at the Budget – there has been no cut in funding or delay in delivery.”
Yesterday’s announcements also revealed some of the cash will be allocated to a pilot of 1,500 ‘First Homes’.
The sector is still awaiting further detail on the funding programme, including the tenures of housing it will support.
Note: following the speech yesterday, Inside Housing reported, on the basis of a briefing, that the £2bn element of the programme would be spent over the eight-year period that the programme had been extended. This story was removed when clarification from government was received that the full sum would be spent by 2026.
