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Affordable Homes Programme branded a ‘disappointment’ for social rent homes in the North
The way in which social rent homes in the North will be funded under the government’s new Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) does not align with its ‘levelling-up’ agenda, the Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) has said.
Announcing details of the AHP this week, the government said that social rent homes can be funded “within areas of high affordability challenge or elsewhere, provided that the grant requested is not higher than it would be for affordable rent”.
But Tracy Harrison, chief executive of the NHC, told Inside Housing this aspect of the programme is “really disappointing”.
Ms Harrison welcomed the AHP as a whole but said: “In terms of this issue about the money for social rent going to areas of high affordability, it’s out of kilter with the message around levelling-up”.
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The AHP is intended to deliver 180,000 homes over five years, roughly half of which will be for either social or affordable rent, according to the government. Social rent level is calculated using a formula based on property values and local earnings.
This has led to concerns that fewer homes will be delivered for social rent in areas across the North, where house prices generally are lower compared to those in London and the South East.
The government has yet to publish the list of areas with high affordability pressures, but data from the Office for National Statistics shows that the housing affordability gap continues to widen between the most and least affordable areas in England.
In Copeland, in the North West, average house prices are roughly 2.5 times average earnings. But in Kensington and Chelsea in London, average house prices are nearly five times average earnings.
Ms Harrison said the AHP is “tremendously important to the North because it’s one of the only funds that isn’t geographically targeted”, unlike the Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF), Estate Regeneration Fund, Home Building Fund, Small Sites Fund and the Land Assembly Fund.
“The example we always use is [chancellor] Rishi Sunak’s constituency [Richmond, Yorkshire], where house prices are seven times average incomes – they can’t access the HIF but they can access the AHP.”
