Jul 25 2007
The Government has today announced it will be investing £8 billion over the next three years in affordable and social housing, a 50% increase on current spending. With this funding the Housing Corporation will deliver its largest ever programme, helping to provide 70,000 new affordable homes a year by 2010-11 (including 45,000 new homes for social rent).
The largest affordable housing settlement for a generation has been unveiled by Housing Minister Yvette Cooper as she launched the Government's Housing Green Paper.
The announcement also included the news that eight Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs) and two Local Authority Special Vehicles (SPVs) are for the
first time in the Corporation's history bidding for funds. They are joined by 23- private sector partners who are also new entrants to the programme, creating an even more competitive mixed economy of affordable housing providers.
Housing Corporation Acting Chief Executive Steve Douglas, said, "This is a massive vote of confidence from Government in the quality and strength of our investment record.
"The Minister has set out her compelling vision for affordable housing and has provided the resources to back it up. The challenge – for housing associations, private developers, ALMOs and local authorities - is now to deliver.
"In 2007-08 we're helping to provide over 47,000 affordable homes through our investment partners. And we will build on this record to deliver even more homes, so that more people can get onto the property ladder, find a home to rent or one that offers the support they need.
"In preparation we are announcing the names of our new investment partners who will be working with us to deliver affordable housing over the next three years
"We are also announcing today that we will run a further pre-qualification process in 2008-9 to grow the mixed economy further. Following the minister's announcement today I can confirm that two star ALMOs will be eligible to pre-qualify next time."
In total 38 new players will join more than 70 partners who have already passed the Corporation's pre-qualification process, carried over from the previous 2006-08 bid round.
The increased capacity that the new partners can provide will be crucial in meeting the challenges of efficiency and growth in the supply of affordable housing. Meeting the growth challenge will mean all our Investment Partners working to identify residential development land and to achieve new efficiencies in the use of investment funding.
Andrew Whitaker, Head of Planning Home Builders Federation Ltd said, "HBF is extremely pleased to see such a significant growth in the involvement of private sector House Builders in the National Affordable Housing Programme. We have been working with the Corporation through their Future Investment Approaches and it is clear that many positive changes have been made over the last couple of years to enable house builders to play a greater role in the delivery of affordable housing."
Dennis Rees, Chair National Federation of ALMOs , said, "'We're extremely pleased that, for the first time, ALMOs have pre-qualified to be part of the National Affordable Housing Programme. We believe that ALMOs can add a lot of value to the development process and to helping meet the Government's ambitious targets for supply. We will be continuing to work with the Housing Corporation to grow the involvement of ALMOs in the process in future."
The full prospectus will be launched in September 2007