Government backs Mayor’s social housing revolution with £1.7bn cash boost

Mayor Richard Parker’s mission to build thousands of new social homes to help ease the region’s affordable housing crisis was today (Friday 7 November) backed by £1.7bn from government. 

The massive cash injection could see at least 10,000 desperately needed, affordable new homes built across the West Midlands over the coming decade. 

For the first time the Mayor, working with Homes England, will be able to shape the way the region delivers its Social and Affordable Homes Programme, which has been given the indicative £1.7bn allocation for the ten years starting next April. 

This will see the Mayor set out ambitious plans for the types of homes that get built and which sites should be prioritised for construction.  

The Social and Affordable Homes Programme will see Mayor Richard Parker have a greater role in building new homes where they are most needed

The Mayor said: “For too long there’s been chronic underinvestment in social and affordable housing. That’s blighted thousands of West Midlands families who have been left struggling to pay expensive private sector rents or stuck in temporary accommodation that can often be poor quality.  

“Helping these families into safe, warm homes that are genuinely affordable is the cornerstone of my Homes for Everyone priority. We’ve made a strong start, but the scale and ambition of this funding will help us go much further, faster.  

“I look forward to continuing to work with Homes England so we can use this money to provide the homes local people need and change thousands more lives for the better.” 

Announcing the funding, Housing Secretary Steve Reed added: "This investment will be lifechanging for thousands of families in the West Midlands waiting for a safe, secure home of their own.    

“We’re putting our regional Mayors firmly in the driving seat to build – with new cash to turn wastelands into homes and slash social housing waiting lists.   

“We’re backing the area all the way to get spades in the ground, fire up those diggers and build, baby, build.”   

He said the Mayor’s involvement in the region’s Social and Affordable Homes Programme meant homes would be built where they were needed most, designed around local priorities, and shaped by people who knew their communities best.   

The Mayor has already set an ambitious target for the region to be building 2,000 social rent homes every year by 2028. He has put a strong focus on social rent because it is the most affordable type of housing.  

The funding announced today will turbocharge his existing plans for more social and affordable housing by enabling providers to get going on bids for projects, break ground sooner, and kickstart thousands of desperately needed new homes for local families. It will also fire up local jobs and drive growth. 

Since taking office in May last year, the Mayor has used his own housing funds to unlock more than 1,500 affordable homes on brownfield sites including over 750 social rent properties.  

Key projects unlocked alongside Homes England include: 

• Phase 1 of the demolition and redevelopment of the Spon End estate in Coventry to deliver 257 affordable homes, 205 of which will be social rent, with Citizen Housing and Hill Group 

• The regeneration of the former Yardley Brook water treatment works in Birmingham to deliver 298 affordable homes including 150 social rent, with Midland Heart and Morro 

• The regeneration of the Royal Quarter site in Wolverhampton, with the latest phase delivering 93 social rent homes including 30 specialist ‘move on’ homes, with YMCA Black Country, whg and Morro 

These three projects alone have delivered a total of 648 affordable homes for local people with 453 (70%) being social rent.  

Around 38% of all homes unlocked by the Mayor’s brownfield regeneration funds over the last 18 months have been affordable.  

The region has 7,450 households, including 14,976 children, currently living in temporary accommodation, and 65,335 households on social housing waiting lists. 

The region’s £1.7bn allocation is part of a record £39bn investment nationally under the Social and Affordable Homes Programme, which aims to deliver around 300,000 social and affordable homes over its lifetime. 

This comes after the Housing Secretary made his first big intervention in the social and affordable housing space and hosted the industry’s biggest providers at a summit last month, urging key players in the sector to: ‘Go big, go bold, and go build’.