Developers are under-delivering on affordable housing to the tune of 18,000 social homes over the past three years, according to figures due to be released in EG’s latest London Residential Research report.
This week’s Conservative proposals to extend right to buy have drawn criticism for further denting affordable housing numbers, but its policy back in 2010, which cut the housing subsidy by 60%, caused starts on affordable homes as a percentage of private units to fall dramatically.
Before the policy developers were building 74 social homes for every 100 private units; after, that dropped to 44 social homes for every 100 private units – a 40% fall. If the number of affordable homes had continued to track the pre- 2010 average, 17,927 extra affordable homes should have been built.
The capital is in the middle of a housing boom, with starts on residential properties at a decade high, said Nigel Evans, head of EG’s London Residential Research. “Bricks-on-the-ground delivery has, if not exactly failed, seriously stalled and, given the meteoric increase in the number of private units starting in 2014, the delivery of actual spade-in-the-ground social housing is down by 47%,” he said.
EG will be taking an in-depth look at the rise of cash payments in lieu of on-site provision of affordable housing and whether this can plug the shortfall when London Residential Research’s full report is released on 13 May.
