Section: Housing Finance
Budget Targets Housing Provision and Energy Efficiency
As part of the budget statement, the Government announced further plans to boost housing supply and deliver more affordable housing. The proposals specifically aim to help young people get a foot on the housing ladder, provide more homes for rent, and improve the environmental sustainability of Britain's homes.
The key measures include:
- More support for first-time buyers with the launch of a new Shared Equity Taskforce and tailored help to give people a first step up onto the housing ladder.
- Increased investment of £970 million through the National Affordable Housing Programme (NAHP) to deliver 35,000 new low-cost home ownership properties over the next two years. The NAHP will also invest significantly in social housing for rent.
- Bringing forward public sector land to deliver a further 30,000 new homes, contributing to the 100,000 new homes being provided through public sector land over time.
- Piloting an extra homes scheme to invest in bringing sites back into use and build more social housing for rent, potentially reducing Housing Benefit costs.
- £50 million for the installation of micro-generation technologies, such as wind turbines for social housing and other buildings, to improve the sustainability of development.
- Extended support through energy companies to provide subsidised insulation for 1/4 million installations to improve the energy efficiency of existing homes.
- Extension of the Landlords Energy Savings Allowance to cover hot water system insulation and draught proofing as incentives to landlords to improve energy efficiency in the private sector.
The new measures build on the Government's response to Kate Barker's Review of Housing Supply last year, which set an ambition to increase house building to 200,000 per year to help meet demand and address affordability problems.
New Funding
Cambridge Housing Society negotiated new borrowing from Lloyds TSB worth £30 million. The Society also borrowed an extra £30 million from Abbey National, bringing the total facility with the lender to £50 million. The new facilities will be used to support development and growth.
Riverside Housing Association increased its loan facility with Bank of Scotland by £10 million to £56.5 million.
- East Thames Group set up a £400 million special purpose vehicle - East Treasury - to lend to its subsidiaries. East Treasury is funded by Barclays, which is providing £50 million in its own right and a further £70 million in its capacity as lead of a lending syndicate. The other syndicate members are Lloyds TSB and Abbey National, which are lending £45 million and £35 million respectively. In a separate arrangement, Nationwide are lending £200 million. The new arrangements are expected to save about £1.5 million per year in borrowing costs.
