A major provider of private finance to housing associations has issued a call for the government to provide more public funding for social housing.
Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) has backed its call with the results of a YouGov survey conducted on its behalf, which shows 73% of people polled back construction of more of this tenure.
Furthermore, the survey of 7,000 UK adults found that 69% say there needs to be more public funding for social housing. While 61% believe social housing could help solve the housing crisis.
David Cleary, LBG’s managing director for housing, believes the results of its poll increase the onus on policymakers to prioritise the delivery of social housing.
He said: “There needs to be a change in mindset in government, and a dramatic shift towards a more collaborative relationship with the social housing sector that, first and foremost, prioritises building the homes so desperately needed all over the country.
“There is a chronic shortfall of safe, warm, affordable homes, and the gap between supply and demand is only widening. Delivering 30,000 homes for social rent by 2026 is nowhere near the 450,000 that is actually needed in that period. The British public want change and policymakers must respond with action that significantly increases the delivery of new social homes.”
Many of those polled believed that social housing should also be prioritised for ex-service people. Over a quarter (27%) said those including medics, firefighters and police, should be prioritised on social housing waiting lists, while one in four (24%) thought that ex-service people should get preferential treatment.
Over the years, the national stock of social housing has been depleted by policies such as the right-to-buy of council homes; since 1980 until 2022, over two million homes were sold at a discount, according to government figures.
In the 2021-22 financial year, 24,932 social homes were sold
Government funding for the provision of new social housing was cut drastically in 2010 by then Prime Minister, David Cameron’s government; slashed by a whopping 60%.
Instead funding was pushed into various scheme to bolster home ownership, shared ownership and the provision of the so-called “affordable rent” model. This has come in for criticism over the years for providing homes that are not affordable to those on low incomes.
However, the impact on social housing has seen the delivery of new homes fall to a trickle. Last year less than 7,000 new properties were built. It is now widely accepted among industry figures that at least 90,000 new social homes are needed per year, to catch up and meet growing need for this tenure.
Some four million people are estimated to need social housing, while over a million households in England are on social housing waiting lists.
Cleary added: “People put great importance on building more social homes and see the value they bring. But to deliver what is needed, policymakers and housing providers must work together better to build quality new social homes at the volumes required as well as improving the standard of the existing properties.
“Social housing providers face many headwinds: from the spiralling costs of building and maintenance to the need to support residents under mounting cost-of-living pressures. They simply can’t be expected to turn things around on their own.”
Image credit: Nick Fewings/Unsplash
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