Affordable house building is in danger of grinding to a halt this year – as money already pledged for new projects is threatened with withdrawal, budgets are cut, and sweeping changes to the planning system make it increasingly difficult to get homes built, the National Housing Federation warned today. The Federation said radical changes to the planning system combined with threatened funding cuts could see the number of social homes built this year slump by 65%, to just 20,390. That would be the lowest annual total of affordable homes built since 1990/91 and would come as a devastating blow to the record 4.5m people on waiting lists in England. Around 2.6m people are also living in overcrowded accommodation. The Federation has written to the Housing Minister Grant Shapps to urge the Government to honour its spending commitments on new housing schemes during this financial year and to halt further changes to the planning system, which could make it almost impossible to get new homes built. Federation chief executive David Orr said: 'The brutal impact of funding cuts combined with the introduction of ill conceived changes to the planning system could lead to a 65% slump in the number of new affordable homes built this year. 'Worse still, unless the Government takes steps to modify some of the policies recently announced we fear that the overall number of affordable homes built in subsequent years could fall to an even lower number. Read the full story on the NHF website by clicking on the logo below.
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