In his speech today unveiling the Autumn Statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that the investment would “bust the planning backlog and develop fantastic new housing quarters in Cambridge, London and Leeds”.
This includes further funding to tackle planning backlogs in Local Planning Authorities and consultation on a reform of permitted development rights.
He added that the consultation on permitted development rights to allow houses to be subdivided into two flats if the façade was unchanged.
Hunt continued that the government would allocate £450m to a third round of the Local Authority Housing Fund, which would deliver an additional 2,400 homes.
Hunt confirmed that the Government would invest £110m over the next year to “deliver high quality nutrient mitigation schemes”. He claimed this would unlock 40,000 homes.
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According to the Government, this will “offset nutrient pollution, unlocking planning permissions that are otherwise stalled”.
The report continued that the Government would invest £5m in additional funding to the Department of Levelling Up to “target application backlogs”.
The report added that the Government is expanding the existing £3bn Affordable Homes Guarantee scheme by a further £3bn to support housing associations to access cheaper loans for quality and energy efficiency works as well as new homes”.
Local Housing Allowance uplift
Hunt added that the Government would “further support low-income households with increasing rent costs” by raising Local Housing Allowance Rates to the 30th percentile of the local market rents in April 2024.
In its report, the Government said that this would benefit 1.6m low-income households, who would be around £800 a year better off on average in 2024 to 2025.
It continued that along with other cost of living support efforts, the measures were worth over £104bn over 2022-23 to 2024-25, equal to around £3,700 per household on average.
The report said that the Government was providing £3m on a “range of measures” to improve the homebuying and selling process, which includes pilots to develop property tech products and digitalise local council property data.
