£1bn Building Safety Fund Launches With Limited Availability For Social Housing Providers

The government has published the prospectus for its new £1bn Building Safety Fund for the removal of unsafe non-aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding systems, setting out limited circumstances in which registered providers and local authority landlords can access the funds. The fund was announced at the 11 March Budget earlier this year and follows a £600m fund previously made available for the removal of ACM cladding. In publishing the prospectus, the government emphasised that the fund is “predominately targeted at supporting leaseholders in the private sector facing significant bills”. Read more on the Social Housing website.

https://www.socialhousing.co.uk/news/1bn-building-safety-fund-launches-with-limited-availability-for-social-housing-providers-66566?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

Osborne Offers Tenants Cash as Right to Buy Alternative

George Osborne has announced an £84m pot to offer social tenants up to £30,000 to buy a new home on the open market. The policy will allow tenants who would have qualified for the Right to Buy to leave their social home and buy a new property. Dubbed the Social Mobility Fund, it will be offered to tenants across England from April.  Local authorities will bid for a share of the cash, which they can then offer to tenants. The deadline for bids is 18 March. The maximum discount available will be £20,000 across England and £30,000 in London, which is substantially lower than the £70,000 and £100,000 respectively offered under the Right to Buy. Download the prospectus from 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.

Local Growth Fund: Housing Revenue Account Borrowing Programme (2015 to 2016 And 2016 To 2017)

The housing revenue account borrowing programme makes available an additional £300 million borrowing for 10,000 new affordable homes over 2015 to 2016 and 2016 to 2017. This was announced in the 2013 Autumn Statement as part of the Local Growth Fund and is available to local authorities who have a proposal agreed by their Local Enterprise Partnership.

• The prospectus sets out the detail of how local authorities can bid for additional borrowing and sets out the process and timetable for submitting bids.
• The application form sets out information a local authority should provide when applying for the Secretary of State’s consent under Section 25 of the Local Government Act 1988.
• The frequently asked questions document has been compiled to help local authorities that are interested in bidding for additional borrowing under the housing revenue account borrowing programme.

Download the documents from the GovUK website.

Government Attempting To Slash 'Incorrect' Homelessness Decisions

Officials are attempting to slash the number of ‘incorrect’ council homelessness decisions by inviting organisations to bid for a £4.5 million housing advice contract. The bidding prospectus for the contract, which will deliver support, advice and training for front line housing and homelessness advice staff from October this year to March 2016, has been announced by the CLG. The prospectus said officials wanted to save money on contesting court challenges by homeless people who feel they have been unfairly treated by councils. Download the prospectus from the GovUK website.

Clegg to Promise 45,000 Homes across Three Garden Cities

The government will pledge to build up to three new garden cities with at least 15,000 homes each. Councils will be invited to bid to build the developments from an existing £2.4bn government fund, made available up to 2020.  Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will unveil the policy and publish a prospectus inviting bids from councils. Government officials said the developments would not be imposed on communities and must have local support, full backing from councils, good transport links and be commercially viable. The government plans to work with the two or three areas that submit the strongest expressions of interest to help them develop their proposals, including with planning and design. Read more on the Building website.

Housing Revenue Account Bidding Programme

The Government has launched its Housing Revenue Account bidding programme for 2015/16 and 2016/17 to help local authorities and their partners build an additional 10,000 homes. The Prospectus is available to download from the Department for Communities and Local Government, and details on how to submit bids will follow. The HCA will be assisting the Department with the assessment of bids outside London. Download the prospectus from the Gov UK website.

New Towns – Parliamentary Written Answer

Emma Reynolds: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what work his Department has contributed to the drafting of a report or prospectus on garden cities since May 2010.  

Danny Alexander: Since May 2010, the Treasury has worked with DCLG on a range of policies to support housing supply, including the Government's Affordable Housing Programme, the Get Britain Building and Build to Rent schemes, and the locally-led large sites programme, which was extended at autumn statement 2013.

Affordable Homes Programme Launches

The Homes and Communities Agency has launched the prospectus inviting  housing associations, councils, developers and others to bid for a share of up to £1.7bn of grant funding for delivery of new affordable housing outside London. Homes delivered with this funding will contribute to the Government’s ambition to deliver up to 165,000 new affordable homes across the country between 2015-18. There will be two routes to bidding: either firm schemes only, or the mixed route comprised of firm schemes and indicative proposals. Any bidder will be able to bid for firm schemes only. Current HCA Investment Partners with a proven track record of good delivery will be able to access the mixed route, where this has been agreed with the HCA. This will maximise certainty of delivery, and delivery of firm schemes will be encouraged early on in the programme in order to help maintain an even supply of affordable homes. Read more on the HCA website.

Tenant Panels and Empowerment: Training and Support Programme

The CLG has issued a prospectus inviting applications from eligible organisations for grant funding to deliver a national programme for social tenants living in social housing that will:

    *encourage more tenant panels to challenge landlords, shape services and get involved in local decision making; and

    *empower tenants to engage with their landlord and take control of local services.

Download a copy of the prospectus from the CLG website.