Almost £10bn allocated in initial tranche
The Government announced the first wave of funding this week as part of the £39bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP), with £10bn provided to deliver more than 70,000 social and affordable homes across England.
Councils, housing associations and developers will receive the funds, with partners including Cambridge City Council, Accent Group, Vistry and Bromford.
Around 60% of the homes will be built for social rent.
Meanwhile, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner and Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook have written to councils demanding that they “scale up now”.
The letter, which requests a response from local authorities by 22 September, calls for councils to review local plans for council homes, make full use of Section 106 opportunities, and consider how council-owned land could be used for housebuilding.
Councils must also “bring forward ambitious bids for the remaining SAHP funding, and tell us what barriers are preventing you from building ambitiously and quickly.”
Burnham targets ‘cowboy builders’
Government is introducing a trusted-trader database and protected payment system for home renovation work, with participating firms required to meet standards for customer service, transparency and dispute resolution.
The scheme aims to tackle rogue builders, with the government citing research showing more than a quarter of recent home improvers experienced problems and consumers lost more than £10bn in 2024 through losses, excessive costs and unfair practices.
Thousands of unsafe blocks await cladding work
Latest Government figures have revealed that 2,146 of the 4,697 buildings over 11 metres with unsafe cladding have yet to have remediation work commence.
The figures also show that 718 blocks have work ongoing, and 1,833 have had work completed.