Building safety funding would enable 91,000 new affordable homes to be built

New research published by Savills for the National Housing Federation (NHF) shows that housing associations could build 91,000 new affordable homes if they had the same access to government funding for building safety work as private building owners.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that the cost of remediating cladding-related safety defects in the social housing sector stands at £3.8bn. However, the current design of the Building Safety Fund and the Cladding Safety Scheme restricts social landlords from accessing these funds as easily as private building owners, who have received 90% of the available government funding for remedial works on buildings over 11 meters with non-ACM combustible cladding. There is minimal public funding for safety works in flats occupied by social tenants. This has impacted housing associations' ability to remediate defective buildings.

The NHF has been calling for building safety funding for buildings where social tenants live for some time, and we will continue to make the point that funding should be provided fairly and not according to tenure. The research published today aims to build on that argument, communicating to government the importance of providing this funding to housing associations, particularly in the context of its ambitions to build 1.5 million new homes.

Savills’ analysis clearly demonstrates the impact that a lack of funding is having on our sector’s ability to build new homes. You can read more about the research in our briefing.

Our letter to the Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister

Jointly with the Local Government Association (LGA), we wrote to the Chancellor and the Deputy Prime Minister calling for equal access to building safety funding and highlighting the results of this research. You can read the full letter below.