Brown's affordable homes pledge 'does not go far enough'

[Gerrard Winstanley]

Brown's affordable homes pledge 'does not go far enough'
http://www.24dash.com/content/news/viewNews.php?navID=1&newsID=1698
by Jon Land
Published: 2005-12-06 11:05:17 

The National Housing Federation says Gordon Brown's pledge to build 
more affordable homes does not go far enough in meeting the 'real 
level' of need.

In a statement published on its website today (Tuesday, December 6), 
the Federation also criticised the Chancellor's decision to cut the 
Supporting People budget by £30 million next year.

It said: "The Federation is pleased with the Chancellor's commitment 
to ambitious plans for increasing supply in social housing, 
particularly his recognition that this will require new resources and 
cannot be delivered through efficiency savings alone.

"However, significantly more than the expected 10,000 additional units 
per year (delivered by 2007-08) will be needed to meet the real level 
of need for new affordable homes. 

"In our submission to the last Spending Review, we identified a need 
for 96,000 new affordable homes per year - 69,500 to deal with newly 
arising need and 26,400 to clear a backlog of 370,000 households over 
13 years.

"We asked for a programme of new affordable housing delivering 35,000 
new homes per year in the first year, rising to 60,000 new homes per 
year in year three.

"The Government will need to identify significant new resources in the 
2007 Comprehensive Spending Review to create the new homes necessary 
to address our affordable housing shortfall." 

The Federation also said that the cut in the Supporting People budget 
would have an adverse effect on vital services for older people and 
vulnerable tenants.

The statement said: "The allocation for the Supporting People 
programme 2006/07 will be £1.685 billion, according to the Local 
Government Settlement which was published alongside the pre-budget 
statement.

"This means the current Supporting People budget of £1.715 billion 
will be cut by at least 1.75%. The reduction will be even greater 
after taking inflation into account. 

"It is the fourth year in a row that the Supporting People budget has 
been cut. The National Housing Federation has expressed its 
disappointment at the decision and believes that vital services for 
older people and vulnerable tenants will suffer as a result."