The government will fall short on its affordable homes housebuilding targets, a committee of MPs has warned.
A report by the Public Accounts Committee, published today, states that the government is likely to fall 32,000 homes short of the aims of its 2016 and 2021 building programmes.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has admitted it does not expect to deliver the intended benefits of the 2021 programme and has already downgraded its forecast, saying it expects to create 157,000 new homes in its 2021 programme, against a public target of 180,000.
The committee said: “DLUHC does not seem to have a grasp on the considerable risks to achieving even this lower number of homes, including construction costs inflation running at 15-30% in and around London.”
The department estimated it would spend £20.7bn between 2015 and 2032 to provide 363,000 new grant-funded affordable homes. Ministers took the decision that half of homes built under the 2021 programme would be for ownership rather than rental.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, said: “Amid all the building targets there isn’t one for affordable or socially rented homes as part of government’s overall housebuilding targets.”
The department is also set to miss its target to deliver 10% of homes in rural areas and may struggle to deliver 10% of homes as supported homes.
Hillier added: “Local authorities know where and what homes must be built to address the national housing crisis but don’t have the power to act. The human cost of inaction is already affecting thousands of households and now the building programme is hitting the challenges of increased building costs. This does not augur well for ‘generation rent’ or those in desperate need of genuinely affordable homes.”
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