Government allocates £10 billion for 70,000 new social homes
Key Points
- Government allocates £9.58 billion to 33 Strategic Partners outside London
- Funding supports 73,600 social and affordable homes over ten years
- Around 60% of the homes will be for Social Rent
- London to receive at least £6 billion through the Greater London Authority
- More than £16 billion of the £39 billion programme remains unallocated
The government has allocated nearly £10 billion to build more than 70,000 social and affordable homes across England.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Secretary of State Angela Rayner confirmed the allocations on Tuesday (25 August) as the first wave of the £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme, a ten-year fund running to 2036.
£9.58 billion will go to 33 Strategic Partners outside London – including councils, housing associations and other providers – to support 73,600 homes over the next decade.
Around 60% of the homes delivered through these partnerships will be for Social Rent, the cheapest form of rented housing, where councils and housing associations set rents well below private market levels.
More than £16 billion of the programme remains unallocated outside London, and the government intends to prioritise Social Rent and council housebuilding when it distributes the rest.
Councils outside London now hold Strategic Partner status with Homes England for the first time, placing them alongside housing associations at the centre of delivery.
Almost 180,000 children in England are growing up without a permanent home, and the government has tied the programme to its wider commitment to build 1.5 million homes this Parliament.
Section 106 agreements with developers remain in place as a separate route to social and affordable housing.
“No child should be raised in a hostel room and no family should wait ten years for a front door of their own,” said Burnham. “Councils built this country out of a housing crisis once before. Backed properly, and trusted to get on with it, they will do it again.”
First wave of homes
More than £2 billion of the money will go to mayoral areas outside London, where Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities set the strategic direction of the programme locally. The estimated Strategic Partnership spend breaks down as follows:
- Greater Manchester: £529 million (supporting around 4,400 homes)
- North East: £445 million (supporting around 3,400 homes)
- West Yorkshire: £441 million (supporting around 4,000 homes)
- West Midlands: £409 million (supporting around 3,200 homes)
- Liverpool City Region: £380 million (supporting around 3,100 homes)
- South Yorkshire: £249 million (supporting around 2,200 homes)
Four newly designated Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities – Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, East Midlands, West of England, and York and North Yorkshire – will also set the direction of the programme in their areas.
The government expects more funding to flow directly to mayoral authorities as the ten-year programme develops. Homes England will administer the programme everywhere outside London.
The Greater London Authority intends to offer at least £6 billion through the programme, with councils expected to deliver more than half of the homes funded in the capital.
“We’ve built record numbers of council homes in London, but the number of families and children without a permanent home stuck on housing waiting lists is still unacceptable,” said Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London.
