The nation's affordable housing crisis will plumb new depths after the election, unless the three major parties commit to protecting the housing budget – the country's housing providers have warned.

The National Housing Federation and Home Builders Federation, the trade bodies for housing associations and private developers in England, fear that cuts of 25% to the housing budget - as implied in the Budget - will have dire consequences for affordable housing provision - as well as the industry.

Cuts on this scale would mean:

• 574,000 planned affordable homes may not be built in the period up to 2020
• 287,000 jobs in construction and related fields could be lost or not be created
• First time buyers will see vital support disappear
• The Government target to build 1m affordable homes, and 3m homes overall by 2020, could be missed by 20 years
• 1.4m people may be added to housing waiting lists, which are already at record levels

Given the devastating impact big cuts in spending would have on affordable house-building, the Federation and HBF say that housing should be viewed in the same 'untouchable' terms as health and education by the political parties, and protected from cuts.


Figures set out in the Budget imply spending cuts to the Government's housing budget of 25%, which if implemented over the next decade would, according to the Federation, slash the planned number of new affordable homes by 574,000. Around 287,000 jobs in the construction industry and related industries would also be lost as a result.

The Government's ambitious pledge in 2007 to build one million affordable homes by 2020 to accommodate the record numbers of people stuck on waiting lists will fail to meet even half that figure if cuts are imposed over the next decade.

Around 162,000 of the targeted affordable homes will have been built by April 2011. If cuts of 25% were implemented to the housing budget over the next decade it would mean, the Federation estimates, that only 426,000 of the targeted 1m affordable homes would be built – leaving a shortfall of 574,000.

If the reduced rate of building continued in the long term, it would take the Government until 2040 to build the envisaged 1m affordable homes – 20 years later than expected.

Federation chief executive David Orr said: "Unless all three main parties commit to protecting the housing budget after the election, we could see affordable housebuilding falling off a cliff – with almost 600,000 planned affordable homes not being built.

"The Government believes that we need around 240,000 new homes every year. But if the housing budget is cut by 25% the number of new homes being built annually could plummet to just 100,000 homes for the foreseeable future."

(CD/BMcC)