In its newly launched Housing League Table, Shelter has found that 98% of local authorities in England are failing to deliver enough affordable homes to meet need.
The league table shows that only 8 of 323 councils in England are providing enough or more affordable homes than are needed, meaning a 98% local authority failure rate.
Local authorities are responsible for identifying the housing need in their area and for ensuring enough affordable homes are provided to meet this need. However, Shelter league tables also show that in the last year a total of 90% of councils (292) provided fewer than half the homes they say are needed.
Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb said:
"We know that the recession has created a difficult climate for house building, but these figures clearly show that councils must work far harder to ensure more desperately needed affordable homes are provided if they ever hope to meet the housing needs of their local population.
"With 1.8 million households on housing waiting lists and more than one million children living in overcrowded homes, it is unacceptable that only 8 councils have provided enough affordable homes to meet local need.
"A step change in affordable housing delivery is urgently needed and all councils must think about how they can work creatively with their partners to deliver more homes.
"But in the current financial climate, and with council budgets set to be slashed, it is also vital that all political parties make affordable housing a top priority, now and in the future."
Shelter's Housing League Table is a new one-stop-shop website that provides local housing data - including house prices, housing waiting lists, levels of housing delivery and practical suggestions of what councils can do to provide more affordable homes.
The website also ranks councils according to their current levels of affordable housing delivery against their analysis of housing need.
Shelter hopes the website will provide councillors and members of the public with easily accessible information about the need for more housing in their local area. The new site also highlights the gaps in local authority housing data and will be used to hold councils to account on their performance.
The Housing League Table will be updated annually to hold council performance and Government policies to account on delivering more affordable homes. This will also highlight those councils who do not provide robust data on housing delivery.
Shelter's Housing League Table can be found here.
Housing Minister John Healey announced plans for tenants with a new job offer to get help to find a new home. The Minister is looking to councils and housing associations to help households who are in low-paid work and need help to improve their career prospects, or to avoid getting into debt.
Under a new home-finding scheme, a resident with the offer of work outside their local area will be given help to find affordable accommodation nearer to their new job.
Tenants will have a single contact point where they can access a new brokering service to register their interest and receive personal help and advice in finding the new home they need to take up their job offer.
The scheme will first run in the North East, North West and Yorkshire, and if successful it will then be extended across the country.
The Minister also outlined plans to give councils and housing associations a greater role in helping tenants in low-paid jobs, by holding financial health checks to help keep them out of debt and ensure they receive the tax breaks and other Government support they are entitled to, and by offering advice about training opportunities to help them into better paid work.
He intends to make £1.2 million available next year for councils and housing associations to run test schemes in up to 15 areas across the country. This, and the new brokering service to help those with job offers into new homes, aims to help over 10,000 people.
The Homes and Communities Agency completed its assessment of the first tranche of schemes for a share of the second round of Kickstart funding.
Of the 265 schemes shortlisted for Round 2, there are 87 successful schemes that will receive funding that will help unlock them and enable more first time buyers to own their own home. Around a quarter of the successful schemes are expected to be back on site by the end of March.
A total of almost £83 million will be allocated to unlock 5,696 new homes, including 3,503 affordable of which 2,193 will be made available through HomeBuy Direct, 345 through other Low Cost Home Ownership routes and 802 for social rent.
Almost all of the schemes (85) are expected to meet Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.
This funding is in addition to £425 million allocated through Round 1 to deliver a total of over 6,000 new homes across 141 mothballed schemes that have been helped to restart on site.
A complete list of the Round 2 schemes announced can be found here.
Berkeley Homes (Urban Renaissance) Ltd
Following the recent successful topping-out of Phase One, Greenwich Council granted approval for Phase Two and Two A of the Kidbrooke Regeneration, the £1bn redevelopment of the Ferrier Estate in South East London by Berkeley Homes (Urban Renaissance) Ltd.
Working in partnership on one of the largest residential regeneration schemes in Europe, Berkeley Homes and Greenwich Council will now continue their work with their development partners; The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and Southern Housing Group to deliver the second phase of the project.
After extensive consultation and planning the second phase at Kidbrooke, designed by architects Scott Brownrigg and PRP, will consist of a total of 710 new homes.
Phase Two, situated on the western half of the masterplan, will provide three to four storey family housing, apartments overlooking a new landscaped park and ExtraCare homes. This will complement the 449 homes of Phase One and provide a mix of much needed private and affordable homes in the area. Phase Two A is situated on the eastern side of the Masterplan and consists of larger family housing and two four storey apartment blocks.
The regeneration at Kidbrooke will create a mixed-use development, including a community of 4,000 new mixed-tenure homes, approximately 300,000 sq ft of commercial and retail space, a new school, new community facilities, integrated healthcare facilities, sports pitches and leisure facilities.
It will also include a new transport interchange and eight hectares of new public open space, in a Masterplan designed by architect Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands.
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Swindon Borough Council
Building work on Swindon's first new council home programme for a quarter of a century will shortly start. A total of 13 two and three-bedroom low carbon homes will be built over the coming months at the former Lyndhurst Crescent depot in Park North.
The homes have been part funded from a £778,000 grant from the Homes and Communities Agency following a successful bid from Swindon Borough Council. The scheme has been funded through the Local Authority New Build programme, which is investing nearly £18 million in delivering 270 new council-owned homes across the South West.
The properties will feature a range of energy saving materials including photovoltaic panels for generating electricity, solar panels for pre-heating hot water and a hot water system designed to store water at lower temperatures than standard homes. Innovative hemcrete walls will also absorb CO2 throughout the lifetime of the building creating increased insulation.
