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Spring Statement: West Midlands strikes housing deal with government
The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has struck a deal with the government to deliver 215,000 homes over the next 12 years, the chancellor has announced.
Delivering his Spring Statement today, Philip Hammond said the authority will receive £100m of grant from the Land Remediation Fund to help it achieve the target.
It is an increase of almost 16,000 homes a year on the region’s current annual output of 12,000 and exceeds the government’s local housing need assessment for the West Midlands.
Conservative metro mayor Andy Street has also agreed to ensure that all 18 of the area’s local authorities have local plans in place by 2019.
Addressing the House of Commons, Mr Hammond said: “We’re concluding housing deals with ambitious authorities who’ve agreed to deliver above their local housing need.
“And I can announce today that we’ve just agreed a deal with the West Midlands, who have committed to deliver 215,000 by 2030/31 facilitated by £100m grant from the Land Remediation Fund.”
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As part of the agreement, the government, together with Homes England, will also consider a deal with housing associations to deliver affordable housing in the West Midlands.
And Homes England will partner with the mayor to develop a site pipeline, a new Joint Delivery Team and plans for new methods of building homes.
Mr Hammond also revealed that 44 authorities won allocations for the £4.1bn Housing Infrastructure Fund, with WMCA one of the successful bidders.
He said housing minister Dominic Raab will make further announcements on the fund “over the next few days”.
Inside Housing has previously reported that the West Midlands housing deal negotiations included discussions on councils being given flexibility over the use of Right to Buy receipts.
However, there is no mention of any such flexibilities in the government’s summary of the deal.
The West Midlands was confirmed as the pilot region for the Right to Buy extension for housing associations at the Autumn Budget in November last year.
Mr Hammond added that the government’s Housing Growth Partnership with Lloyds Banking Group would be doubled to £220m.
He also allocated £1.7bn of additional housing grant, from previous affordable housing announcements, to be spent in London.
The government has set itself a target of delivering 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s.
Update: at 15.45pm, 13/03/18 More information on the deal was added to the story.
Update: at 12:06pm, 14/03/18 Further information was added to the story.
Spring Statement: key measures announced
- West Midlands Combined Authority agrees to provide 215,000 homes by 2030/31 facilitated by £100m grant from Land Remediation Fund
- London to receive additional affordable housing grant of £1.7bn to provide 26,000 more affordable homes in the capital
- More than double housing growth partnership with Lloyds Banking Group to £220m to provide finance for small builders]
- Talks underway with 44 councils which bid into the Housing Infrastructure Fund
