Letter to Gove

The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP,

Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities,

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

2 Marsham Street

London 31st July 2023

SW1P 4DF


Dear Minister,

I have just read that you have returned £1.9 bn budgeted for 2022-3 because you were unable to find housing projects to invest it in. You will be pleased to know that I can assist you with this.

Here in Bristol we have 19,000 families on the Council Housing list, that’s 30,000 individuals. They are going to remove half of them from the list because they have no realistic prospect of the Council being able to house them. As you may know these people are in desperate circumstances; Families in single hotel rooms, couch surfing etc.

I’m 72 and it’s been this way for as long as I can remember. (I saw “Cathy come home” when it was on TV for the first time in 1966). I’m determined to do something about this, so I’m I’m standing for election as a Bristol City Councillor. What is needed is an “Emergency Housing Plan” to provide accommodation for these people while they wait for all the affordable homes promised, to be built.

The idea is to put up prefabricated homes. A kit can be bought for about £6,000 for a three bedroom house. The plan is to erect these temporarily on any spare land, until the affordable homes are built, and then they can be removed. I’m hoping to find space for 20,000 such homes.

This will not only deal with the housing list, but provide a safety net for people in difficulties who rent, or are struggling with their mortgage.

Please can you tell me how I should go about applying for some of this spare money?

Yours sincerely,

Barry Cash

Goves reply

Barry Cash
22 Fenton Road
Bristol
BS7 8ND
barrycash@uwclub.net

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Email: correspondence@levellingup.gov.uk
www.gov.uk/dluhc
Our Ref: 30359578
Date: 6 October 2023

 

Dear Barry Cash,
Thank you for your letter of 31 July to the Rt Hon. Michael Gove Secretary of State for Housing concerning your proposals for affordable homes in the Bristol area, this has been passed to me for a reply on his behalf, please accept my apologies for the delay in doing so.

The provision of affordable housing is part of the Government’s plan to build more homes and provide aspiring homeowners with a step onto the housing ladder. Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes for both rent and to buy right across the country.

The Levelling Up White Paper committed to increasing the supply of social rented homes and a large number of the new homes delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for social rent.

The government is on track to deliver its target of building around 250,000 affordable homes through the Affordable Homes Programme 2016-23, with around 244,000 new housing starts delivered by March 2023, and a further 5,000 homes granted an extension to start before March 2024.

Programmes such as the Affordable Homes Programme are multi-year funding programmes. Their budgets are spent flexibly – meaning some money can be moved into future years depending on demand and the wider economic climate.

It is standard practice for departments to adjust their delivery and expenditure profiles in response to external changes. During the 2022/23 year there were a number of challenges in the housing market driven by global supply chain pressures, related construction product inflation and changes in the availability of finance for developers. We addressed these issues through changes to our delivery, securing the delivery of our housing supply and support over the medium term by adjusting delivery in this year.

In the case of the Affordable Homes Programme, economic volatility caused housing associations to pause or slow their developments. We have worked with our partners to adapt the programme of support and shore up the delivery of affordable housing in 2022/23 and future years. Funding has been reprofiled into the remaining years of the programme and we remain committed to the full £11.5bn programme.

We have a strong record on housebuilding – with more than 2 million homes delivered since 2010. Our target of delivering 300,000 homes per year remains and we are fully committed to funding and delivering our programmes that help us meet that target, including the £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme.

I note your proposal to use prefabricated housing as an interim measure whilst new affordable housing is built.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities shares the cross-government objective of increasing the use of modern methods of construction (MMC), which includes pre-fabricated housing. MMC provides an important opportunity to improve the quality of new homes, deliver more energy efficient homes, reduce construction waste, improve productivity and address the shortage in construction skills.

New technology and innovation have improved productivity, quality and choice across a range of sectors and the Government wants to see the same happen in housing. By embracing modern methods of construction, housebuilders can deliver good quality new-build homes more quickly. Taking advantage of these technologies has the potential to deliver more energy efficient homes to buyers, improve site efficiencies and reduce waste.

We are focused on tackling the barriers to increasing the use of MMC: bringing down the cost of MMC in housing; stimulating a sustained demand pipeline to attract investment and providing employment opportunities.

Currently most affordable housing is built by housing associations, but we know there is more ambition out there in untapped parts of the market. We welcome proposals from existing and new partners – housing associations, local authorities, developers, for-profit providers, community-led organisations and others who have an ambition to deliver affordable homes-including those we haven’t previously worked with.

Yours sincerely,
Tim