New Homes: Where Is The Supply Being Concentrated?

Since the seventies, housing starts and completions across England and Wales have been on a downward trajectory. The long run average over the last 50 years has been around 180,000 per annum, with the highest numbers being achieved at the start of this period and the lowest in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007/08. Over the last few years government initiatives, including the Starter Homes Fund, Housing Zones and Get Britain Building to name a few, have been launched to help stimulate the house building industry. This plus a recovery in the housing market has resulted in a pick-up of supply taking both starts and completions in line with each other at about 150,000 in 2015/16. Read more on Estate Agent Today.

Refocus Housebuilding On Towns And Villages To Solve Crisis

London has been given almost 100 times more housing zone funding than the rest of England combined, but has only built twice as many houses, new research has revealed. Calling for housebuilding investment to be more fairly distributed across the country, the Housing and Finance Institute (HFI) thinktank concludes that it is a “cultural myth” that the greatest need for homes is in the biggest cities. The organisation cited figures that show nearly 80,000 more people are on housing waiting lists in regional local councils than in the capital and metropolitan areas combined. The HFI report used housing-zone funding to support its argument that funding is skewed towards major urban centres. Download the report from the HFI website.

Shortlist of 29 Housing Zones Published By Government

The government has announced the areas shortlisted to become the first flagship housing zones in England - to help provide thousands of new homes across the country. A shortlist of 29 areas outside London has been published, each of which have bid to become one of 10 housing zones, where it will be easier and quicker to build new homes on brownfield land. Getting Britain building is a central part of the government’s long-term economic plan. Since 2010 over half a million new homes have been provided, including more than 200,000 affordable homes. Read more on the CLG website.

Housing Zones: Prospectus

The housing zones programme offers the chance to unlock brownfield land that has the potential to provide viable housing schemes. This is through a combination of:

·         long term investment funding

·         planning simplification (eg local development orders)

·         local authority leadership

·         dedicated brokerage support from central government and the Advisory Team for Large Applications (ATLAS) planning support.

Central government is making available £200 million of recoverable investment funding for housing zones in England outside of London.  The prospectus sets out more detail of the funding and bidding process to create housing zones outside of London. Download the prospectus from the CLG website.

Housing Zones Policy Sets Tough Criteria for Councils

To little fanfare this week came the housing zones prospectus, setting out how councils and developers can apply for a share in £200m. The fund is made available to encourage faster housebuilding on up to 30 brownfield sites across England. Councils will have to prove themselves to secure a slice of this pie. They’re asked to show that they have a strong existing relationship with the private sector and will use the award to attract in longer term funding. There must be a site identified, sufficient to build 750 homes. Good design should be prioritised, with those authorities including innovative off-site building methods or custom building arrangements pushed to the front of the queue. They must show they have the capacity and resources to get the project going and must also show they have local support in place. In return they get some project leadership support, a brokerage service to help deal with the planning complications, and even the right to strip back planning requirements. Can councils meet the tough criteria expected of them? They can if they locate their prospective zones in the least challenging areas, both in terms of economic advantage and in terms of community support (or otherwise). Read more on the Guardian website.

£200million Fund to Protect the Countryside from Building

Plans to build thousands of new homes in 10 towns and cities across the country have been unveiled by the Government. The Treasury will pay £200million towards the cost of getting the "brownfield" sites ready for new homes, ministers said. Brandon Lewis, the new Planning and Housing minister, said the cash would ensure that greenfield areas across England are protected from builders, because it would mean that developers' resources were more focused on meeting a share of housing need in towns and cities. Under the scheme, councils will be given the chance to bid to set up 10 new housing zones in urban areas across the country.  As part of the deal, the local authorities will have to commit to building between 750 and 2,000 new homes. Read more about the bidding process on the CLG website.

Borough Bids to Become Housing Zone

An innovative package to accelerate the borough’s house-building and help more families get a foot on the housing ladder has been unveiled by Haringey Council. The wide-ranging plans approved by the council’s Cabinet sets out how underused sites could be unlocked to create thousands of new homes – giving residents more choice of high-quality housing with a range of rent and ownership structures. Highlights include:

• A bid to the Greater London Authority for Tottenham Hale to become a housing zone, releasing up to £80million in funding to build up to 3,300 homes
• A new customer service centre at Tottenham Green creating 290 new homes and provision for existing market traders
• Further consultation with residents and traders, building on existing feedback on how to bring better homes, improved access to jobs and more open space

Read more on the Haringey Council website.

Up To 50,000 London Homes to Be Built In Brownfield Scheme

Up to 50,000 new London homes are to be built on 20 brownfield sites, in a £400m scheme announced by the Treasury.  The homes will be built on "housing zones", where planning restrictions are removed to get homes built quickly. The new zones are in line with a shake-up of planning rules to support house building announced by the chancellor at London's Mansion House recently. Labour said it is "too little too late" as Mayor Boris Johnson has built only a third of 63,000 homes needed annually. Read more on the BBC.

Delivery Model Key To 200k Homes Pledge

A future Labour government will have to get the delivery model right to achieve its house building aspirations of 1 million new homes in five years.  Home Group has mapped out a model of delivery – Housing Zones – which could make Labour’s housing aspirations achievable. Home Group’s Housing Zone model brings together a range of existing measures into one coherent framework that makes it suitable for large scale development of the right houses in the right locations, including;

• Incentives and powers granted to allow developers, housing associations and local authorities to dramatically increase the delivery of new housing of all tenures within the zones
• enhanced Compulsory Purchase Orders to enable site amalgamation
• Relaxation of planning regulations

Read more on the Home Group website.