HOUSING PROVIDERS & CAMPAIGNERS JOIN FORCES TO CALL ON GOVERNMENT TO MAKE HOUSING TOP PRIORITY FOR SPENDING REVIEW » Communities » 24dash.com

The Chancellor will need to earmark £11.6 billion for new affordable homes in next year's Comprehensive Spending Review to begin to solve the country's critical housing shortage, according to a powerful lobby of housing providers and campaigners.
 
The National Housing Federation, Shelter, the Local Government Association, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Federation of ALMOs, who together provide housing and housing related support and community services for over 10 million people, have today made their joint bid for the 2008-11 Spending Review calling on the Government to make housing a priority.
 
There is an average of 209,000 new households forming every year for the next 20 years, 94,000 households in temporary accommodation and 1.5m households on waiting lists.  House prices are also at record levels and so the case for delivering a major increase in affordable housing provision has never been clearer. Together they have asked that the Government deliver a programme of sustained housing investment to tackle the current housing crisis.
 
New homes
The alliance is urging the Government to resource 210,000 new affordable homes over a three year programme of 65,000, 70,000 and 75,000 homes per year at a cost of £3.6 billion, £3.9 billion and £4.1 billion per year through the National Affordable Housing Programme.
 
The housing sector's offer to government is to support NAHP investment with a financial contribution of approximately £2.7 billion per year in the form of loans and reserves contribution of around £2bn per year.  In total we will provide approximately 50% of the resources needed to provide the 210,000 new homes. We recognise the need to increase the supply of both new affordable rented  and low cost sale / intermediate housing and propose that the programme is split between affordable rented homes and subsidised home ownership homes, delivering 150,000 affordable rented and 60,000 low cost home ownership homes across three years.
 
Homelessness
This step change in affordable housing supply will house significantly more households than at present, but will not mean an end to the need for homelessness prevention activity. Therefore, the alliance has recommended that the homelessness prevention budget is set at £80 million, £100 million and £110 million for the three years of this review.  This would provide an additional £190,000 over three years for each local authority in England to assist in setting up and running an additional homelessness prevention project. We also believe resources for the Hostels Improvement Programme, support Gypsies and Travellers and Civil Legal Aid should be a priority.
 
Decent Homes in the local authority and housing association sector To meet the Government's manifesto commitment to achieving Decent Homes in the local authority housing stock and to meet the commitments anticipated ALMO bids the alliance believes there is a required investment of £3.2bn for the CSR07 period and a further £1.2bn for the following period.  We believe that both the housing association sector and local authorities with retained stock, but not included in the ALMO programme, will be able to meet the Decent Homes target without additional government investment.
 
Decent Homes in the private sector
A better framework is needed to deal with non-decency in private homes occupied by vulnerable people that enables the asset to be freed up.  We recommend that government establishes a new programme geared to achieving scale-up of the number of loans and equity release schemes being taken out to improve homes. We are proposing that government makes an average of £40M per annum available to local authorities over the next three years to support access to commercial equity release for the purpose of making non-decent homes decent.
 
Supporting People
Uncertainty over future revenue funding means that new services are not being developed. To remedy this, the programme must be put on a secure financial basis - the existing budget plus inflation uplifts should be maintained. To secure the future of the Supporting People programme and to protect previous public investment through both revenue and capital programmes we are asking for the Supporting People programme to be up-rated to reflect real inflation costs of service providers (predominantly staff costs), to restore confidence in meeting needs and to provide room for modest levels of investment in new services. We recommend a programme of £1.8bn, £1.9bn and £2.0bn for the three years covered by this review and this should be ring-fenced to ensure that Supporting People monies do not escape to meet shortfalls in other budgets.
 
Local Authority Strategic Role
The Local Government White Paper, Strong and Prosperous Communities recognises the strategic housing role of local authorities as "at the heart of achieving the social, economic and environmental objectives that shape a community and create a sense of place." Resources need to be made available to local authorities to encourage them to prioritise strategic housing and to make the step change in skills and approach that is required. Our recommendation is for £40M per year to be made available to support strategic housing over next Spending Review period, phased over the three years (£50M in year one, £40M in year two and £30M in year three).  This translates as around £100k per year per local authority for three years.
 
Commenting on the joint submission, David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, said:
 "Decades of under investment and the legacy of Right to Buy combined with increasing numbers of households and worsening affordability has created an unsustainable gap between housing demand and supply. Put simply, there are not enough homes for the people who need them. Only a sustained increase in supply can begin to tackle this shortage."
 
Adam Sampson, director of Shelter said:
"Shelter and leading national housing organisations have united to call on Government to invest in an average of 50,000 affordable rented homes per annum, 20,000 more than already planned. These homes are crucial if the Government is serious about tackling the worst manifestations of the housing crisis such as homelessness and overcrowding."
 
Paul Bettison, chairman of the Local Government Association Environment board, said:
"The delivery of new homes is crucial but new homes do not in themselves make communities. Alongside development needs to come a raft of vital supporting services and a balanced approach to how new housing relates to existing villages, towns and cities.
 
"Local councils strive to create places where people can thrive, and are best placed to appreciate both of these challenges - seeing that growing communities have the infrastructure and services they need to prosper and making sure existing communities benefit from development."
 
David Butler, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said:
"The case for continued major investment in housing is strong and has never been clearer. As a sector we are clear what needs to be done - but we need the Government's continuing commitment to support our life changing work.  A failure to do so will not only deepen the housing crisis but undermine Government's attempts to make improvements in other key areas such as health, education, environment and community cohesion."
 
Dennis Rees, Chair of the National Federation of ALMOs, said:
"The ALMO programme has so far been an unprecedented success in improving the lives and housing conditions for many thousands of tenants while also delivering better services and real tenant empowerment.  It is essential that the programme's momentum is not lost and that the government continues its commitment to bringing council housing up to the decent homes standard."

Ends

Press release issued: November 17 2006