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London borough to bid for up to £150m grant to build council housing
Newham Council is planning a mammoth bid of up to £150m for grant to build new council housing under Sadiq Khan’s new building programme.
Tonight, the council’s cabinet is expected to vote to approve plans to bid for £108m of grant with potential to increase this to £150m.
It will also ask to use another of the mayor’s new schemes to recycle up to £62m of Right to Buy receipts to build new homes, as well as bidding for £53m of new borrowing headroom on its Housing Revenue Account.
The new mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, pledged in May’s elections to deliver 1,000 new homes at social rents within her first term.
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As part of achieving this aim, the council is bidding for what Sadiq Khan has called the first ever City Hall programme dedicated solely to council housing.
Under the programme, local authorities can access a hugely increased grant rate of £100,000 per home for social rent, around a 300% increase on rates available in recent years.
Papers submitted to Newham Council’s cabinet suggest that it is highly confident of being able to start 2,100 homes on site with the funds, 1,056 of which will be at or below London Affordable Rent levels, which are slightly higher than average social rent levels but would be equivalent.
These sites, it said, would attract £108m of grant at the mayor’s new rate. The council also said that it could possibly start an additional 2,104 homes by 2022, 811 of which would be at London Affordable Rent levels.
These homes are not set to be included in the council’s first bid, but Newham Council will suggest that they could be added into the bid as the sites become available, increasing the potential bid to £150m.
Newham will also bid to take part in City Hall’s scheme for Right to Buy receipts.
It plans to send £62m of the money it receives from council housing residents buying their homes under the Right to Buy to City Hall. The mayor’s office will then ringfence that money for use by Newham Council.
According to the council papers, the council is currently exploring the possibility of using those receipts for homelessness provision and temporary accommodation, as it is very difficult for councils to use the funds to pay for affordable rented homes.
Ms Fiaz said: “These bids will help us to deliver a substantial proportion of the homes I promised to our residents when I stood for election back in May.
“I am also determined to use our Right to Buy receipts to correct the unfair measures which means we are losing social homes at such at a rapid rate. I will do all I can to accelerate house building in Newham so we can tackle the housing crisis facing our Borough and the rest of London.”
Update: at 16.09 on 5.9.18 This story was updated to include a quote from Ms Fiaz.
