Chancellor’s makes funding pot £3bn larger than existing scheme and announces £1bn cladding fund 

Budget 2020 - Rishi Sunak 11-03-20 Credit HM Treasury

Source: HM Treasury

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has today used his 2020 Budget to announce a £12bn funding settlement to pay for new affordable homes.

As predicted by Housing Today, the funding is an increase of £3bn on the current five-year affordable housing programme from 2016 to 2021. The £12bn package will cover the five years from 2021.

As also predicted, the chancellor also announced a fund to cover the cost of re-cladding tower blocks clad in flammable material. However, the announcement went further than expected, with a £1bn building safety fund which can also be used to pay for replacing cladding of other types than the ACM used on Grenfell Tower.

Sunak also announced further allocations from the government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund, and a reduction in the rate at which councils and social landlords can borrow against the Public Works Loan Board to build new housing. 

In addition, Sunak revealed that housing secretary Robert Jenrick will tomorrow unveil the long awaited planning white paper, which is due to contain reforms designed to speed up the planning system to allow the delivery of more homes.

Other housing measures included:

  • A £400m fund to help combined authorities build homes on brownfield fund 
  • The announcement of a joint plan and development corporations to deliver the ambition for one million homes in the corridor linking Oxford, Milton Keynes and Combridge
  • A full review of the terms on which the Public Works Loan Board lends money
  • A pledge to introduce a Single Housing Infrastructure Fund in the forthcoming spending review
  • More devolution to local government and particularly combined authorities, with a funding deal announced for the West Yorkshire Combined Authority

The measures on housing came after Sunak unveiled package of support for small businesses facing the impact of the Coronavirus outbreak, including a holiday from business rates, and government funding to cover sick pay for SMEs.

In addition, he laid out plan for a multi-billion pound “hardship fund” which could see individual small businesses given as much as £3,000 to deal with the costs of Coronavirus.

More to follow…

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