by René Lavanchy and Keith Richmond
Over fifty thousand fewer affordable homes look set to be built in England over the next three years than previously planned, including 45,000 fewer in London, it emerged last week.
The Homes and Communities Agency, which is responsible for funding most low-cost homes for rent or sale, has drastically cut back its targets in agreement with the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
A letter from Richard Hill, its head of investment, confirms that London will see its affordable home completions cut from 44,000 to 37,000, while new starts will be reduced from 66,000 to 28,000.
The cutbacks, leaked to the Financial Times last week, mean that despite Gordon Brown’s promise to build an extra 20,000 affordable homes as part of his “Building Britain’s Future” plan, fewer homes will be built in 2008-11 than anticipated last year.
An HCA spokesperson refused to say how many homes had been cut nationwide, but blamed the downturn in the housing market: “The targets have been reduced across the board. A lot more grants have to go into building homes for various reasons, one of them being that social landlords would have made sales revenue [to reinvest in new homes]. They’ve lost a lot of that.”
London Mayor Boris Johnson’s office reacted angrily to the cuts. Richard Blakeway, the mayor’s director of housing, said the plans were “totally unacceptable” and paid no attention to long-term need. London has over 350,000 households on social housing waiting lists.
Meanwhile, campaign group Defend Council Housing, which earlier this month gave a cautious welcome to government proposals set out by John Healey to reform council house finance in Britain, now says the proposals fall short.
DCH said: “The consultation document promises ‘a level playing field between transfer and retention’ but the demand by tenants, trade unionists, councillors and MPs does not mean levelling the field down to the poverty standards previously on offer for retained council housing.
“Our message to the minister is clear: tenants and their landlords will not be bullied into accepting unsustainable levels of debt based on poverty standards. We will not accept anything less than fair funding to bring homes and estates up to genuinely decent standards and maintain them for a sustainable future.”
