Charlie Ash, Sector Lead for Housing Associations at NHBC.
“The government’s announcement of the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) today, with the allocation of nearly £10 billion to deliver 70,000 homes across England will be warmly welcomed by local councils, housing associations and other providers.
This kind of focused regional funding, aimed at the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, North East England and Liverpool is essential to help reduce the critical need for affordable homes across England. We might have expected the proportion of the funding allocation for social rent homes to be higher – at least 60 percent was announced – as previously the PM has called for all funding to be spent on social rent homes.
This funding gives RPs greater visibility over their development pipelines, much-needed certainty and will allow for better long-term planning, which is brilliant news. We need to think in decades and plan ahead for population growth and changes in demographics as people live longer and more people live alone than in previous generations.
The new guidance for the delivery of Section 106 homes, launched to help reverse the downward trend we’ve seen in recent years, is particularly welcome and represents a significant turning point for housing association development. It’s essential housing providers are empowered to bid for these homes and that Section 106 allocations remain financially viable for both the provider and the developer.
Another point which will please councils is that they can now retain and reinvest revenues generated by the Right to Buy scheme, long a controversial topic in the sector. Some are still calling for greater reforms of Right to Buy but given councils received £1.61 billion in Right to Buy sales in 2025/26, this will be a considerable boost to housing coffers in many areas.
Councils being brought into the strategic partner model alongside housing associations is a positive step forward too – we’ve always believed closer collaboration across the sector is key to unlocking more homes. Partnerships between councils, RPs, developers and contractors will be vital to deliver homes at the scale we need and it’s encouraging the government recognises this.
This funding is excellent news for increasing development volume and we encourage building at pace, but greater volume without disciplined quality and risk management could be disastrous for the sector. Many areas already struggle to maintain poor quality housing stock from previous eras and we must not repeat the mistakes of the past. Quality must remain key – we believe everyone deserves to live in a quality home and standards must not slip in the rush to build.”
