Posted 25.11.20
Mayor of London: Further reading
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has outlined his plans for a new generation of social housing for London.
His new £4 billion Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) for 2021-26 aims to build new safe, green, well-designed social housing, delivering on an ambition that high-quality homes shouldn't be the preserve of the rich.
The new AHP will run concurrently with the current 2016-23 programme, which has been extended by one year due to the pandemic. Together they will result in the delivery of 82,000 new homes from April 2021 onwards.
The Mayor has long argued that the most acute need in London is for low-cost homes to rent and has persuaded the Government to allow more than half the new programme to fund social rented homes.
The Mayor has set ambitious targets for London to be a zero-carbon city by 2030 and expects homes built with AHP funding to be environmentally sustainable.
The new sustainability standards include requirements for all developments of ten or more homes to be net zero-carbon and to incorporate sustainable urban green spaces.
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Posted 06.11.20
RIBA: Further reading
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is calling on the government to end the housing crisis by giving support and resource to local authorities to deliver the next generation of council housing across England.
In a new report, 'Homes for all: Putting council housing at the heart of local recovery', the RIBA calls for urgent investment in social housing.
Following a detailed analysis of public sector and independent data, the RIBA has concluded that not only would this provide high-quality, safe and sustainable homes for those in need, it would also generate a huge jobs boost across the country.
With 1.15 million households on social housing waiting lists across England, Crisis recently calculated that the Government needs to build 90,000 new homes per year to meet demand.
The RIBA argues that delivering these homes would not only tackle the housing crisis, it would also create over a quarter of a million new jobs each year.
To deliver the new homes required, the RIBA recommends:
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