Public Accounts Committee chair speaks out in wake of controversy over watering down of central targets
The government should bolster central housing targets to include numbers for affordable housing delivery, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee Meg Hillier has told Housing Today.
Just one central target can “mean you end up building all sorts of housing of the wrong type”, Hillier said, speaking after the release of a report this week on the Affordable Housing Programme (AHP).
Her comments also came in the week the government came under fire for weakening its planning reforms in response to a backbench rebellion over the imposition of housing targets.
Housing secretary Michael Gove said the government will retain a central system for determining local housing need, but councils will be able to choose whether or not they adopt it as a target. On Wednesday Labour leader Keir Starmer accused prime minister Rishi Sunak of breaking a manifesto promise to build 300,000 homes a year by “scrapping mandatory targets”.
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Hillier said a central target was important to “hold feet” to the fire, but that you need “targets for different tenures”.
She pointed out the government had not set out how many of the 300,000 homes it said it wanted to build a year in England as part of its 2019 manifesto pledge should be social homes.
Although, the PAC noted in its report the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities does have a target for the number of social homes it will fund the building of under the AHP programme, there is no overall social homes target in the planning system.
The report release this week on the AHP noted the committee’s concern “that the number of homes being built for social rent is not enough to meet demand.”
Hillier explained houses that might not be the tenure needed might be built or counted in the stats - just to make up the target. “You make a promise then everyone scrabbles around trying to achieve that,” she said. “For example, student houses will make up the numbers, although social homes may be more in need in an area, or nursing home spaces will be counted as new properties.
Hillier said that if targets are not mandatory there “needs to be grown up negotiations”. “It’s much easier to build on greenfield or light-touch brownfield land. You might find you don’t get the right homes in the right places.”
She suggested councils could be given “sweetners” to encourage them to ensure they are building enough homes, such as having the chance to bid for more grant funding.
The PAC AHP report yesterday recommended DLUHC worked more closely with local authorities “to take greater account in the programme of local need for affordable homes”. It also said the department should report annually to parliament on the types, tenure, size, and quality of homes built by local authority area under the programme.
It also showed the government will fall short of its Affordable Housing Programme targets. It is expected to build 32,000 less than the 430,000 target for the 2016 and 2021 programmes.
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