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£45 million funding boost to support councils unlock land for thousands of homes

A £45 million cash injection into key community projects will help kick-start the building of thousands of new homes, Housing Minister Dominic Raab has announced.

As part of government’s drive to get Britain building homes again, a total of 79 projects from Newcastle to Plymouth will receive funding to support building up to 7,280 homes on council owned land.

To support local councils to meet their ambition to unlock enough of land they own for at least 160,000 homes by 2020, they will be able to use the Land Release Fund money to combat barriers which would otherwise make land unusable for development.

The projects – which aim to support building strong communities – include a range of necessary works such as asbestos removal and bat alleviation, as well as schemes that will significantly improve quality of life such as essential relocating of a pelican crossing.

This move comes 2 weeks after the projects set to benefit from the first wave of funding from the £5 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund were announced, helping to get up to 200,000 homes off the ground through investment in local housing projects. This is part of the government’s comprehensive strategy of planning reform and targeted investment to build 300,000 homes a year.

Housing and Planning Minister Dominic Raab said “We are investing £45 million to build roads and provide utilities, so councils can release the land to get up to 7,280 new homes built.

“It’s part of our strategy to build the homes Britain needs, and carry local communities with us.

“We’re determined to make buying or renting more affordable for young families and those on low or middle incomes.”

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£5bn Government injection to help small builders

At the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham this week, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid and Chancellor Philip Hammond revealed that the government are planning to make new money available for builders in the UK.

This will consist of a £2bn Accelerated Construction scheme to make publicly-owned brownfield land available for quick development and the already announced £3bn Home Builders Fund, which seeks to help fund the development of 25,500 homes by 2020.

How it will work

The intention of the new funding is to provide short-term loans for small builders, which will be borrowed from the public sector. This will help them build quicker as public land will be made available with outline planning permission already available to them and money will enable them to undertake any required remediation work on the brownfield sites prior to construction starting.

The ministers are also urge builders to use modular technologies to meet housing demand, as it will shorten the delivery time.

Redevelopment

At the conference the ministers also confirmed that they are also pushing ahead with allowing office blocks to be repurposed or replaced entirely with residential developments. This alone has the potential to create 4,000 homes by the start of 2022.

Chancellor Philip Hammond commented: “There has been a housing shortage in this country for decades, and this Government is determined to take action to tackle it. “We’ll use all the tools at our disposal to accelerate housebuilding and ensure that, over time, housing becomes more affordable. That is why we are committing £2 billion of additional investment towards this.”

Sajid Javid concluded: “Tackling the housing shortfall isn’t about political expediency. It’s a moral duty. And it’s one that falls on all of us. Not just in Parliament, but in business, in local government and in our communities. So my message today is clear: it’s time to get building.”

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