Philip is cycling 350 miles from London to Arnhem (Holland) in support of the charity "Help for Heroes" on the 13th September 2010.

This incredible charity provides support to our wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, to learn more about Help for Heroes click onto the following link http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/

If you care to make a small donation - click onto the following link http://www.justgiving.com/Philip-Helm

Many, many thanks.

It's Simply Housing.

So it's been quite a year.

The Simply Housing Team would like to thank all those who have visited our site over the last 12 months (from 68 countries) for all their feedback, ideas, opportunities and support.

Delivering affordable housing schemes is what we do - but identifying appropriate land (at the right price) still remains our biggest challenge in order for us to continue to focus on delivering affordable mixed tenure residential schemes, affordable homes for the elderly and supported housing developments. House prices in the UK increased by 5.9% in 2009 (Nationwide) which will further exacerbate the challenges that the c.1.9 million households currently in housing need (in the UK) face in trying to find an affordable home.

We continue to work closely with our sister company Simply Churches and are pleased that this side of our business continues to grow.

We will continue to post updates of our ongoing activities during 2010 as we continue to expand our activities and areas of operation - working with some of the best Clients and Consultants in Housing.

We wish you all the best for 2010.

It's Simply Housing.

It's been a while since our last post as we have been extremely busy over the last few weeks getting a couple of our projects "across the line".

As we know the UK Government has a target to build an additional 250,000 new homes every year. A recent (Sept 2009) well sourced discussion paper "Mind the Gap - Housing Supply in a Cold Climate" predicts that new build completions in 2009 are likely to be under 100,000 and again predicts a total shortfall of one million houses by the end of 2010. In terms of the affordable housing requirement, the HCA will aim to deliver c.50,000 new affordable homes this year and has ambitions to deliver 70,000 new homes a year in 2010/11.

An analysis of Housing Waiting Lists published by Shelter (Dec 2009) just confirmed what we all know, that Housing Waiting Lists are increasing, it gave the example that a quarter of English Local Authorities would take more than a decade to clear their Housing Waiting List and 82 Local Authorities would take between 10 and 33 years to clear their Housing Waiting Lists. Nationally, there are something like 1.7 million households on the Housing Waiting List.

As indicated above our Clients are working hard to do their bit to deliver affordable housing schemes and those who work closely with us will know of the ongoing frustrations involved in getting all the required ducks in a row. We continue to work closely with the HCA and their agenda of engaging with the private sector to deliver additional affordable homes - but the overall process is hugely demanding.

We will continue to focus our energies on the Local Authorities who are most driven to deal with their respective challenges, be they older persons housing, supported housing, rural housing or traditional affordable homes for intermediate sale or affordable rent.

It's Simply Housing.

There has been much in the Press recently about increasing house prices, price declines levelling off and indeed values back to where they were 12 months ago. The majority of the RSLs we are working with remain focussed on delivering social rent developments, though a few are now considering looking at Intermediate products - with these hitting the market in 12 months time.

The thread of everything we do is focussed on working with Local Authorities in identifying suitable affordable residential development opportunities that help them meet their strategic housing objectives, to support their regeneration programmes and help some of the thousands of people that are currently registered on every Local Authority's housing waiting lists.

Affordability remains absolutely fundamental - house price increases have on the whole been the result of a shortage of new houses coming onto the market - and this exacerbates the challenges that first time buyers have in finding a suitable home, finding a deposit and securing an affordable mortgage product.

We continue to work with some of the best Clients in the industry but we all share the industry wide frustrations of the length of time it takes to achieve planning consent, fasten down funding and secure an RSL end user. The HCA through their continued engagement with the private sector (Investment Partner Status / Kickstart etc) is showing positive dividends as it does create an alternative route for the delivery of new affordable homes to help those who are unable to afford purchasing their own home in the traditional manner.

It's Simply Housing.

For those of us who are involved in the procurement of affordable housing - the provision of new rural affordable homes is one of our toughest challenges.

There are in the region of 1.8 million people waiting for an affordable home - which reflects almost a doubling over the last 10 years, it is very difficult to extrapolate the numbers of people in rural areas waiting for a new affordable home, but we expect that rural housing needs account for about 25% of that figure.

It is estimated that one English Village School is now closing every month as young families are priced out of an area because of the rising cost of housing and the acute shortage of new affordable homes, this has a knock on effect on the rural economy. Affordable housing is vital to sustainable rural communities.

The NHF estimate that 100,000 extra low cost homes are needed to meet rural housing needs over the next ten years. The HCA's Rural Affordable Housing Project has committed the HCA to delivering the Government's target of 10,300 new affordable homes between 2008 and 2011 - which is a formidable target. We welcome the HCA's clearly articulated desire to work with its partners to break through some of the prohibitive barriers.

We will continue to work with our partners in the identification and delivery of new affordable rural housing schemes but the potential abortive costs associated with working up a rural housing scheme are sometimes too great to take the risk. As ever we welcome the support of the HCA's Rural Champions and trust that they will be able to reduce the risk of schemes not proceeding.

It's Simply Housing.