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Half of new association homes funded privately
Housing associations are funding almost half their affordable housing from their own balance sheets, statistics from the National Housing Federation (NHF) have revealed.
The Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) accounted for only 52% of affordable homes – social rent, affordable rent or shared ownership – completed by housing associations, or 4,786, in the first quarter of the new financial year.
This is a much lower proportion than the NHF has recorded in the two years it has been gathering data on development by housing associations and reflects associations’ growing dependence on private finance as opposed to government grant.
Overall, housing associations built 9,291 homes in the last quarter, down from 11,259 in the previous quarter. Comparing this figure with the first quarter of 2016/17, however, suggests that completions have improved slightly, up from 8,247.
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Associations have started work on fewer homes this quarter on either comparison, though. In the last quarter, they started 9,063 new homes, compared to 15,356 in the previous quarter and 10,444 in the same period last year.
The tenure breakdown of the completed homes remained fairly steady. Twelve per cent were for social rent, 47% were for affordable rent, 25% were for affordable home ownership, 4% were for market rent and 13% were for market sale.
For starts, more affordable homes were built without government funding than were built with it, suggesting that the sector is increasingly having to look elsewhere for funding sources. There were 3,498 homes built with money from the AHP, mostly for affordable rent, while 4,230 homes were built with funds obtained through other sources.
Regional variation continued to be significant. The South East has surged ahead of London in terms of starts, beginning work on 2,189 new homes in the last quarter. While London still completed the most homes in the last quarter – 2,256 – the capital fell back into fourth place for starts, behind the South East, the South West, the East and the South West.
The NHF compiled these figures by surveying housing associations, to make up for the failings of DCLG’s figures, which do not attribute homes built under Section 106 agreements to housing associations. This survey received a response rate of 84%, from respondents representing 94% of all stock owned by developing housing associations.
