Angela Rayner says the Government is “tilting” towards council and social housebuilding in a bid to reduce the number of homeless families in expensive temporary accommodation.
A total of £10bn worth of funding is going to councils and housing associations to build more than 70,000 homes across England, 60 per cent of which must be social housing, Rayner told The i Paper.
Some of these homes will be built on “low value” parts of the green belt, the Housing Secretary said, if they are reclassified as “grey belt”.
She said there are “golden rules” for building on “grey belt” land, which means there should be 50 per cent of social housing in any given development as well as supportive infrastructure. The Government will be “working with strategic authorities to see how we can develop homes” in these areas.
Under Sir Keir Starmer, Rayner agreed 10 years of funding for a landmark Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) to be delivered over the next decade. However, there was less emphasis on building homes for social rent, on involving mayors in the process of building new homes, or on encouraging councils themselves to build.
In a major shift from former housing secretary Steve Reed’s focus, which was to support private housebuilders to deliver new homes for market sale, Andy Burnham has made clear he wants to see more social and council housebuilding, and tasked Rayner with making his vision a reality.
Rayner said the Prime Minister was “really clear” when he took office that “he wanted to see the biggest generation of council house building for a generation” and the £10bn was a way of “ramping up” that pledge.
The number of people living in temporary accommodation because they are homeless has surged under Labour to 135,000 households.
This includes 86,460 households that contain children. A total of 177,530 children were homeless and living in private rentals, hostels, B&Bs and hotels at the end of March. This now costs local councils in England a record £2.8bn a year.
Rayner says the Government is moving away from private housebuilding and focusing on delivering new council homes (Photo: Alex Lancaster Lennox/The i Paper)Rayner argued that this crisis is “having a knock-on effect” on councils’ ability to deliver new homes for all because they have to “pay more” for temporary accommodation.
Britain’s housing market is currently stalled and struggling, while Labour faces a crunch point on its manifesto target of building 1.5 million new homes by 2029.
The £10bn announced today is set to be followed by approximately £21bn for council and social housing, which has not yet been allocated (£16bn outside of London and around £5bn for the capital).
The Housing Secretary hopes the Government will boost overall “confidence” in the housing market by bringing this funding forward.
“We want councils to come forward,” she said. “We want to build social homes because we know that’s where there is an acute shortage at the moment.”
However, she stopped short of confirming when these new social and council homes will be completed, or confirming a date for helping first-time buyers and young people with other affordable housing options – such as shared ownership or “help to buy” schemes.
Another major gear shift under Burnham is the involvement of mayors and strategic combined authorities.
Rayner said the Government was giving mayors more power to build housing, including the ability to overrule councils if they reject planning applications.
Of the £10bn, the following mayoral authorities will receive:
Greater Manchester: £529m West Midlands: £409m North East: £445m West Yorkshire: £441m Liverpool City Region: £380m South Yorkshire: £249mAn additional 33 “strategic partners” that will receive the rest of the money will be announced in due course, the Government said.
“All local authorities have to have a mandatory plan,” she said. “The previous government didn’t do this, which meant that there was more opportunity for houses to be built in areas where the local people didn’t want [them].”
The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, will be given £6bn to spend. Rayner said London hosted the highest number of children living in temporary accommodation, and nodded to Khan’s existing focus on homes for social rent.
She said this has seen the capital deliver high numbers of council houses. “We want to see that across the country working with the mayors,” she added.
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