London is to receive 20 per cent of the additional £2 billion of grant funding for affordable homes announced by the government yesterday, according to City Hall.
The £400 million follows an extra £100 million allocated to the capital in the budget last autumn and forms part of what is described by the government as “a down payment from the Treasury ahead of more long term investment in social and affordable housing planned later this year”.
The whole of the £2 billion will be available for the financial year 2026-27, with construction on “up to 18,000” new homes required to begin in various part of England by March 2027.
The percentage of the 18,000 homes that will be built in the capital will depend on how London’s £400 million is allocated by Sir Sadiq Khan’s housing team to affordable homes providers in London, where the cost of building is generally higher than elsewhere in the country.
The guidance in the government’s announcement says it will ask City Hall and others who will receive the funds to “prioritise homes for social rent, in line with the government’s commitment to support this tenure”. Social rented homes tend to require more grant funding per unit than other “affordable” types, such as shared ownership.
The £2 billion boost has been welcomed by the housing sector, including by Fiona Fletcher-Smith, chief executive of housing association L&Q and chair of the G15 Group of leading London housing associations.
She praised the government for recognising that “sustained, long-term investment is critical” to providing “the certainty needed” by housing associations as contributors towards it hitting its target of seeing 1.5 million new homes built nationally by 2029.
London is in the grip of an acute shortage of relatively affordable homes for low-cost rent or shared ownership, with London Councils, the umbrella group for the capital’s 33 local authorities, struggling to cope with demand for affordable dwellings and the costs of providing temporary accommodation for local homeless households.
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If you asked a child from the 90s and early naughties to draw a house, you’d get your traditional square, triangle roof, four windows and a door….possibly a chimney. Ask a child born in the last 10 years and they’d draw a tower block.
It’s shameful that tower blocks with paper thin walls, floors and ceilings, as well as flammable cladding are considered “homes.”