Housing Minister reveals 200,000 affordable homes milestone

Nearly 200,000 new affordable homes have been delivered since April 2010, new figures show. Housing Minister Kris Hopkins welcomed the news as “a real success story”.

New figures show there were 41,654 affordable homes started in the year to March 2014 – 15% higher than the previous year. In addition 125,000 of the 170,000 homes planned through the Affordable Homes programme, in which the government is investing £19.5 billion public and private funding, have now been delivered. It means that since April 2010, 197,792 new affordable homes have been delivered. Overall, the government has delivered 445,000 new homes since April 2010. In contrast, between 1997 and 2010 the number of social housing homes dropped by 420,000.

Housing Minister Kris Hopkins told Windows Active said: “Our affordable housebuilding efforts are a clear success story, with nearly 200,000 new affordable homes delivered since April 2010. It means families from Newcastle to Newquay have new homes available to them, whether to rent at an affordable rate or to buy through our shared ownership schemes. And this is on top of the wider efforts we’re making, which means housebuilding is now at its highest level since 2007.”

The Affordable Homes programme includes social rented homes, affordable rented homes and affordable home ownership schemes, and is a key part of the government’s long-term economic plan. And with every new home supporting a job this multi-billion pound programme is helping get people back into work.

Council areas that have seen some of the biggest numbers of affordable homes delivered since April 2010 include:

• Birmingham – 2,740
• Cornwall – 2,690
• Wiltshire – 2,620
• Leeds – 1,910
• Bristol – 1,830
• Manchester – 1,810

A fifth of the affordable homes built last year, and a quarter of the total since 2010, were built in London.

The success of the Affordable Homes programme is one of a number of indicators that Britain is building following the end of the housing boom in 2008. Others include:

• planning permission was granted for 216,000 new homes in England in 2013 to 2014
• the Help to Buy scheme has helped over 27,000 people get on the property ladder with a fraction of the deposit they would normally require – leading developers are building more as a direct result of the scheme, with private housebuilding up a third compared to last year
• new home registrations rose by 30% in 2013 in England, the highest since 2007, and are up 60% in London – the highest for over 2 decades
• council housebuilding starts are at a 23-year high
• housing starts are at their highest since 2007
• the numbers of empty homes are now at a 10-year low