You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Affordable housing completions up 27%
Affordable housing completions rose 27% in England last year, with the increase driven by new homes for affordable rent and shared ownership.
According to figures released today by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Office for National Statistics, 41,530 affordable homes were delivered in 2016/17, up from 32,630 in 2015/16.
The numbers include all homes for social rent, affordable rent, intermediate rent, affordable homeownership and shared ownership.
Last year’s figure of 32,630 represented a low point in recent years and despite this year’s rise it is still the second-lowest level of overall delivery since 2004/5.
Social rent completions dropped 21%, down to 5,380 in 2016/17 from 6,800 the previous year.
Numbers of affordable rent completions rose 47% from 16,550 up to 24,350, while shared ownership deliveries more than doubled from 4,080 up to 8,810.
READ MORE
Housing minister Alok Sharma said: “These latest figures show progress but we know there is more to do.
“That’s why we have increased the affordable homes budget to more than £9bn and introduced a wider range of measures to boost building more affordable homes, supporting the different needs of a wide range of people.”
The report accompanying the statistics cites two factors as being behind the increase in affordable completions: the transition to the government’s 2016/2021 Affordable Homes Programme, and a boost in homes delivered through Section 106 agreements due to an overall increase in housebuilding.
The data shows a rise in affordable starts from 29,170 in 2015/16 up to 49,420 last year.
However, comparisons may not be reliable as information was only collected from the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and the Greater London Authority (GLA) and not local authorities in the earlier period.
Section 106 was the most common means of delivery for all tenures except affordable rent, which was mainly developed by housing associations with HCA funding, GLA funding, or independent funding.
New build homes accounted for 92% of the affordable homes provided in 2016/17, compared to 89% in 2015/16, with the rest delivered through acquisition of existing housing stock.
Melanie Rees, head of policy at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “We desperately need more genuinely affordable homes to tackle our national housing crisis and address rising levels of homelessness.
“Theresa May’s recent announcement of an extra £2bn investment was a very welcome first step, but we think the government can go further in rebalancing its housing budget away from the private sector towards affordable housing.”
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: “These new figures show a healthy and encouraging increase in the delivery of new affordable housing in the last year.
“However there is still a long way to go to meeting the housing needs of so many in England. Recent announcements by the government will help housing associations build far more new homes and, in particular, provide a welcome uplift in new homes for social rent.”
Update: at 16:28, 09/11/17 The story was updated to include a quote from David Orr.
