"Access to affordable housing is one of the biggest problems faced by the UK", Nick Clegg (Deputy Prime Minister) said 16th August 2010, Mr Clegg said affordable housing had become "one of the biggest long-term problems that we face as a country".

Following a report published by the Chartered Institute of Housing this weekend, which said the "golden age of homeownership" was over, Mr Clegg said he found it "heartbreaking" when he saw young families in his constituency who were unable to afford a home of their own. Mr Clegg announced that the government was "due to make a number of announcements on homeownership and affordable housing".

"One of the things that we are doing is dramatically decentralising power, making it easier for local communities to decide for themselves where they want new homes", he said. He also attacked the current council housing finance system for preventing councils from building new affordable housing.

As we know, delivering subsidised affordable (social rent) housing without a capital subsidy is a significant challenge.

We await these announcements with interest.

It's Simply Housing.

Following the recent Emergency Budget (22nd June 2010), the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) announced (6th July 2010) that its Capital budget for 2010/11 would only be reduced by 10% leaving it with £4.11 billion to fund further investment in new affordable homes.

The detail of the HCA?s investment priorities will become clearer over the next few days ? but this is good news for those of us involved in the delivery of mixed tenure affordable housing developments. At the last count there were some 4.5 million people on the housing waiting list (NHF 22nd June 2010) and the confirmation of the availability of funding will go some way to easing this acute housing need and keep many employed in the construction and associated industries.

So is it business as usual ?

It's Simply Housing.

House prices in England and Wales are continuing to rise strongly, according to the latest figures issued by the Land Registry, house prices in April rose by another 0.2%, pushing up the annual rate of increase to 8.5%. This was the fastest rate of growth since September 2007 and the Land Registry has said that the cost of the average home in England and Wales now stood at £165,596.

We have blogged previously about increases in house prices and how this clearly has an impact on the affordability of decent homes for those entering the market. The soon to be announced stringent budget cuts will inevitably reduce further the availability and as such the affordability of a new home. Those of us who are at the sharp end of procuring new affordable homes know that delivering a new home on a social rent basis is a major challenge but this is the form of tenure that many local authorities deem as being truly affordable.

The coalition government has announced a number of ?housing and community? themes aimed at encouraging those in a social rent home to purchase equity in that home, promoting shared ownership, raising the stamp duty threshold for first time buyers, trying to find a solution to bringing empty properties back into use, using local trusts to deliver affordable housing and encouraging the development of rural housing through the ?Home on the Farm? initiative. We will look at these in more detail when that detail is more forthcoming.

So to summarise, house prices continue to increase - squeezing affordability, the ability of the HCA to deliver its housing target will be restrained with the inevitable capital spending cuts and some of the plans to change the planning system could well make it even harder to achieve planning consents for affordable housing schemes.

So it?s business as usual !!

It's Simply Housing.

We are clearly facing challenging times ahead.

The UK budget deficit is currently c.£165 billion, EU rules say government deficits must be below 3% of GDP, but the UK's deficit is expected to hit £178bn (or 12.6% of GDP) this year.

At Simply Housing our principle role is to deliver affordable housing ? a number of our (non RSL) Clients have Investment Partner Status with the HCA which means that they can work directly with the HCA to deliver affordable housing. The HCA has put on hold all new NAHP funding until after the Emergency Budget on 22nd June. It is expected that the HCA?s budget of £2.4 billion for 2010-11 to create in the region of 155,000 new homes will face severe cuts.

Our Company has the ability to deliver 1,000 new affordable homes over the next 12 months with its partners across 50 sites (predominantly) in the North West reflecting an overall investment in excess of £100 million, and as such we await with interest to see the outcome of the Emergency Budget on 22nd June

It's Simply Housing.

Simply Housing has been appointed by ICare Extra Care to assist with the sales and marketing of their new Extra Care development in Lytham St Annes - Links View www.icarematureliving.co.uk. The development comprises 59 one and two bedroom luxury apartments with a wide range of fantastic on-site facilities. Links View is situated right alongside The Old Links www.stannesoldlinks.com golf course in St Annes with many of the apartments having views of the golf course, the sand dunes and the sea beyond.

It's Simply Housing.