By David Jones, managing director of Evans Jones 

The Government latest published figures for the affordable housing delivery in England (2023-24) record a total of 62, 289 affordable homes completed. This represents the second highest delivery of affordable housing since 2014-15.

Whilst this on the face value look good, the underlying trend is much less encouraging. New affordable housing starts to record a decrease of 39% compared to the previous year.

Whilst the national picture for delivery shows some encouraging news, in the South West it is noted as one of the regions in the UK to have a decreased delivery of affordable housing compared to the previous year.

As part of the proposed changes to the planning system, the Government are seeking to increase the stock of affordable housing.

In a speech given to the Social Housing Conference on November 20, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Angela Rayner stated:

"Our commitment to delivering 1.5 million homes also includes a commitment to the biggest increase to social and affordable housing for a generation. Not just because it's nice to have, but because history tells us that we'll only reach our overall goal by building lots more affordable homes."

Historic housing building figures tell us that the only periods when house building gets close to delivering the targeted holy grail of 300,000 dwellings per year is when public sector house building delivers a significant proportion of new dwellings.

The government seek to increase house building and aim to "Get Britain Building" via proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework. With expected relaxation of Green Belt restrictions and encouragement to development Grey Belt (previously developed land) within the Green Belt, subject to a requirement to deliver at least 50% affordable housing on Grey/Green Belt sites.

Additionally, the Government have announced £500 million in new funding for the Affordable Homes Programme, as part of the £5 billion investment into housing set out in the recent Budget. The extra funding for the Affordable Homes Programme is intended to help build up to 5,000 new affordable homes.

The Bigger Picture

The Government clearly aims to encourage local authorities to release more land for housing. Proposed changes to the Standard Method for calculating an areas housing requirement would see a 43% increase across England as a whole. Within Gloucestershire, Local Authorities will need to allocate land to accommodate a whopping 48% increase.

But with delivery trends declining (for both open market and affordable homes) and new starts hitting record lows, the effectiveness of the proposed policy amendments remains in doubt.

What successive governments fail to understand is that developers (large and small) are commercial organisation who are in business to generate profit. Whilst that may be a 'dirty' word for some, it is a commercial reality. If houses are not selling developers will stop or slow delivery. Add to this the perfect storm of rising build costs, increased finance costs, developer contributions for CIL, S106 Contributions, SANG, SAMM contributions, nutrient neutrality enhanced building regulations and now the devasting impact that delivering Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is having on scheme viability, it is difficult to foresee how the proposed policy changes will deliver any meaningful uplift in housing delivery.

For more information, go to https://www.evansjones.co.uk or call 0800 001 4090.