The National Housing Federation has warned that plans to build more than half a million affordable homes over the next decade could be axed because of government spending cuts
The NHF says figures in the last month’s pre-Budget report imply that the housing budget will be cut by 18% over the next decade. It claims that this reduction would mean that 556,000 fewer social homes would be built than had been planned.
The federation called for all political parties to pledge that social housing would be categorised as an “untouchable” expenditure after the next election.
In 2007 the government pledged to build three million homes by 2020, one million of which were due to be affordable. It is expected that 162,000 affordable homes will have been built by April 2011.
Last September John Healey, the housing minister, announced that the government planned to spend £250m to build 3,400 council homes.
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