Government outlines where and how Communities Plan money will be spent
The government has at last fired the starting gun on what it hopes will be the race to build at least 250,000 homes across four growth areas in south-east England by 2016.

In a series of announcements on Wednesday, the government put flesh on the bones of deputy prime minister John Prescott's £22bn vision to tackle the housing shortage in the South.

The principal points unveiled by Prescott and prime minister Tony Blair on a visit to a development at Ingress Park, Dartford, were:

  • £330m for the Thames Gateway, largely to cover site assembly and infrastructure for 120,000 homes
  • £16m for the Thurrock and east London urban development corporations
  • as much as £2bn in private sector money will also go into the Gateway.

As part of this strategy, the Thames Gateway has been divided into five areas. Barking & Dagenham will get £22m towards 10,000 homes; Stratford/Lower Lea will get £56.8m towards 6500 homes; Greenwich/Woolwich/ Thamesmead will get £42m towards 20,000 homes; Kent Thamesside will get £31.7m for 25,000 homes and Thurrock will get £32.3m with no figure for homes set.

The other three growth areas – Milton Keynes/South Midlands, Stansted/Cambridge and Ashford – will get initial funding of £136m. The remainder of their £164m pot will come over the next three years for projects that are currently in the early stages of development.

Other announcements included:

  • an urban development corporation for Northampton established with an undisclosed amount of funding
  • English Partnerships has set up a development vehicle with Milton Keynes council to coordinate housebuilding on land in the area largely owned by EP.

Housing associations keen to get a piece of the housebuilding action said a flurry of background activity was under way, but construction would not commence on most of the major sites until 2006/7.

Housing minister Keith Hill said levels of affordable housing would be decided by councils but added that: "In broad terms, we are encouraging local authorities to look at one in four of new houses being for affordable housing."

This admission is likely to clash with the London plan, approved last week, which recommends an average of 50% affordable housing on all new developments in the capital.

Also, the government has moved to allay concerns that the region's infrastructure could not cope with the growth. Some £600m of improvements to roads and other links were announced by transport secretary Alistair Darling earlier this month.

Frank Vickery, assistant chief executive at East Thames Housing Group, said: "It's Crossrail that makes it work, especially the link from the Royal Dock to Barking and Thurrock."

Alan Cherry, chairman of developer Countryside Properties, supported the way the funds had been divided between the subregions of the Thames Gateway. He thought housebuilders would be able to meet planning gain targets in the area. "It's my belief that the housebuilding industry has come to terms with the idea that planning gain is important to the provision of new development."

He said Keith Hill's suggestion of about 25% affordable housing on each development was "about right" but added that some developments could accommodate more than this.

Source

Housing Today