Alex Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2015-11-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assistance his Department plans to give to local authorities to ensure that they are able to provide new affordable housing to people on low incomes.

Brandon Lewis

More council housing has been built since 2010 than in the previous 13 years. 2014 saw the highest number of council housing starts for 23 years.

Almost £222 million of extra borrowing headroom has been allocated to 36 councils in England to support over 3,000 new affordable homes in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

The 2011-15 Affordable Homes Programme exceeded expectations – delivering 186,000 new affordable homes -16,000 more than the target. In addition, this Government is committed to delivering a further 275,000 new affordable homes by 2020. Through the 2015-18 Affordable Homes programme, we have already allocated around £1.4 billion to support this delivery

The Government is committed to helping hard working people across the country to own their own home. We believe that shared ownership has an important role to play in helping those who aspire to home ownership but may be otherwise unable to afford it.

We launched a one-off £36 million funding package in August to pave the way for the first wave of Starter Homes on brownfield sites that would otherwise not be built on to help more young people into discounted home ownership. Of this, up to £10million will be made available to councils in England. 200,000 Starter Homes will be built by 2020/21.

Right to buy additions are due within 3 years of sales: 3,694 new Right to Buy addition starts and acquisitions were delivered against 3,054 additional homes sold in the first year of the scheme. Receipts from the sale of Right to Buy homes will continue to help authorities to build new additional properties.