Last week the quango announced the headline figures for next year’s larger than expected £1.2bn programme, which is expected to deliver £2bn of investment overall (Housing Today, 21 March).
The lion’s share of the funding will go to providing 800 homes for rent and 740 for sale in London and the south east, where demand is highest.
Meetings with housing minister Lord Falconer, Homelessness Directorate head Louise Casey and the Affordable Housing Unit outlined the “pressure building up on London and the south east”, corporation assistant chief executive, investment and regeneration, Neil Hadden explained.
“It’s bigger than we were initially planning,” he told Housing Today. “We decided to see what could be brought forward into the next financial year.”
“The corporation determined the level of the allocation, but there was interest in increasing it for London, particularly from the government,” a London housing source explained.
The delayed ADP was broadly welcomed, but RSLs complained about inconvenience caused by the wait.
“I was speaking to some members yesterday: they were still completely in the dark,” a National Housing Federation regional officer said this week.
Shepherds Bush Housing Associa-tion received an £18.3m allocation, up on last year. But chief executive Paul Doe branded its lateness “frustrating”.
“We staffed up on people on short-term contracts which ran until the end of March and the uncertainity that the delay created was problematic,” he explained.
Metropolitan Housing Trust regeneration director Mark Leffler said: “The lateness of the ADP is putting awful pressure on us as we are trying to do deals on site and we are expected to spend earlier in the year.”
A corporation spokeswoman confirmed that making a case for extra funding caused the delay.
“But the extra discussions proved fruitful,” she added.
Source
Housing Today
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