The UK is experiencing a huge housing crisis as we speak. On the residential side, property prices remain strong as demand for housing far outstrips the current supply. This will deprive a large proportion of the population the opportunity of home ownership, which in turn will place increased pressure on affordable and social housing.
In response, findings from our Residential Property Market Report indicate strong feelings from those surveyed on the role of Government within the home ownership market. Almost a quarter (24%) of all respondents believe that more social and affordable housing should be addressed by Labour in their first six months of power, with 12% wanting the Government’s efforts to be directed towards more help for first-time buyers.
In their first Budget since the election, Labour reiterated their manifesto promises on housing, committing £5bn of government investment for housing next year, including topping up the Affordable Homes Programme with an additional £5million. This includes a commitment to build 1.5million to 1.85million new homes in their first term, which is a welcome boost to purchasers and housebuilders alike. However, the UK is already an estimated 2.5million homesshort of its targets, meaning that until additional supply is a reality, competition and pricing will remain high for the foreseeable future.
If we’re to boost the UK’s housing stock, tackling the many issues surrounding the planning system is essential. It’s clear that, at a local level, many of the planning processes in place are highly inefficient and decision making needs to be simplified and delivered within far shorter timescales. Doing so will also make it much easier for developers to regenerate, renovate and reimagine abandoned land and buildings in the heart of our towns and cities, providing much needed housing and facilities in the communities that require urgent assistance. Brownfield and greyfield sites are ripe with opportunities and can help us limit the amount of green belt development needed to meet housing targets.
At Together, we’re absolutely committed to accelerating the delivery of inclusive communities – having launched our own social housing initiative in 2022 - and over the years have become a trusted finance partner for social housing providers across the UK.
This truly is an underserved sector, and we know how vital it is to provide the right type of support within timescales that enable our customers to keep their important work and projectsmoving in the right direction.
Social housing is an essential tool for upward social mobility, as it provides families and communities with a strong foundation to build on.
And so, when looking ahead and to better understand both the problems and benefits within the social housing sector – we, along with other housing associations, banks, lenders and otherspecialists in the sector – have now adopted the Sustainability Report Standard for Social Housing (SRS). This is an environmental, social and governance (ESG) standard designed to help the housing sector measure, report and enhance its ESG performance in a transparent, consistent and comparable way.
But there’s more work to be done. The more firms that commit to becoming an adopter, the more accurate the reporting will be, so we can continue to improve how best to support the needs of the sector and the overall lives of those impacted.
We also need to see a shift in public policy to help those who are underserved, vulnerable and most in need. This can be done by increasing local housing allowances to provide greaterbenefits, creating more care homes, incentivising developers with affordable housing allocations and working with planning to speed the approval process up.
