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Thousands of grant-funded homes to miss March deadline
Thousands of grant-funded affordable homes will miss the March 2018 deadline for completion under the latest grant programme, Inside Housing can exclusively reveal.
According to information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from Homes England and the Greater London Authority (GLA), 185 housing associations and councils have had to change their forecasts on homes they had expected to finish before 31 March, the ‘drop dead date’.
Inside Housing understands that some of the delays have been caused by providers pausing construction to improve fire safety after the fire at Grenfell Tower.
The current funding programmes for Homes England and the GLA both end on 31 March, and associations that do not finish homes are required to repay grants, unless they receive a waiver.
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A spokesperson for Homes England said: “We will be working with all our partners to manage the delivery of our programme, including agreeing extensions where appropriate. This would include the grant payment.”
Homes England refused to provide numbers of homes, but the GLA revealed that 5,358 of its grant-funded homes are forecast to miss the deadline.
The 2015/18 programme in London, established by previous mayor Boris Johnson, aims to deliver a total of 42,000 affordable homes.
It has granted 125 applications for deadline extensions. It had indicated it would do this in its original funding prospectus, which read: “Offers are invited for funding to deliver homes which can complete by March 2018. The Mayor would also like to offer trusted delivery partners, with a proven track record of delivery, the opportunity to extend some completions into the 2018/19 financial year.
“This will depend on the quality, volume and value-for-money of offers received. All homes must start on site before March 2018 and complete by March 2019.”
Paul Hackett, chief executive of Optivo and chair of the G15 group of London housing associations, told Inside Housing: “That is a significant number, but it’s important to bear in mind that these funding programme dates don’t necessarily relate to the development cycle, so schemes will from time to time be delayed for a variety of reasons.”
Notting Hill Housing and Genesis, currently in the process of merging, accounted for 1,752 homes, a third of the total.
A Notting Hill spokesperson said: “Notting Hill Housing has an excellent track record of delivering affordable housing and currently have a large programme that we are committed to delivering. Sometimes schemes face unavoidable delays, whether on-site or through the planning process, but we do all we can to minimise those delays.
“We are in constant dialogue with the GLA and regularly review our progress against the programme and have agreed extended delivery dates on all our schemes where necessary.”
A Genesis spokesperson argued that because the original prospectus had provided for extensions into 2019, 31 March 2019 is the true deadline and Genesis is on course to deliver “the majority of schemes to this deadline”.
They added: “Where completion is beyond the deadline of March 2019, the homes will be delivered within future GLA programmes. This is being done with the GLA’s full agreement and in line with our contract.”
Of the 185 associations, there were 38 on the GLA’s list and 164 on Homes England’s, with 18 appearing on both. Some of the largest organisations in the sector are on the lists, including Clarion, L&Q and Places for People.
A spokesperson for the GLA said: “This was an inherited programme with rules set by the previous mayor that are being managed, but we don’t expect this to impact on delivery of targets and we will continue to agree programme changes on an ongoing basis, as appropriate.”
