Dom Veney: These reforms are about making the system work
A series of structural barriers will need to be addressed if the government's social and affordable housing ambitions are to be realised, latest research from the Purposeful Finance Commission (PFC) finds.
The PFC – the group led by Pension Insurance Corporation, Wates Group, and igloo Regeneration – said its report, Mind the (Viability) Gap, sets out practical steps to help ensure the government's £39bn social and affordable homes programme delivers at the scale intended.
This comes at a time when just over 10,000 social homes are being built annually against a waiting list of 1.3 million households.
The report's key recommendations include:
- Granting the new construction regulator statutory powers to cut through 12 fragmented regulatory bodies and force coordination on the projects that matter most
- Create a national library of pre-approved, regulation-compliant housing designs, informed by what communities actually want
- To unlock more viable social housing sites, the government must ensure it fulfils its commitment to giving councils stronger, simpler compulsory purchase powers to acquire stalled or underused land at realistic, closer-to-existing-use values, backed by safeguards that put social value, fairness and timely delivery at the centre
- Water and sewage infrastructure must be planned and funded alongside new homes by law.
PIC interim chief executive and PFC chair Dom Veney said: "More than 1.3 million households are on social housing waiting lists, yet we're only building around 10,000 new social homes a year. At the heart of this failure is the viability gap – the difference between what it costs to build social and affordable housing and what the revenues can ever support. Until we close that gap, we will keep converting good intentions into poorer delivery outcomes. These reforms are about making the system work - aligning incentives, reducing unnecessary delay, and turning institutional capital into homes that last."
Wates Group public sector director Stephen Beechey added: "Everyone across the sector recognises the scale of ambition, but too often good intentions are undermined by a system that makes schemes unviable before they even reach site.
"What the PFC has set out is a credible roadmap for closing the viability gap – addressing land, regulation, infrastructure and delivery in the round. From our experience delivering social and affordable housing across the country, earlier coordination, clearer accountability and a stronger focus on whole‑life value are essential if public investment is to translate into homes at the scale and quality communities need."
Igloo Regeneration development director John Long said: "This is a landmark piece of research that will be instrumental as we enter the next stage of delivering vital housing across the UK. At igloo, we have long championed building on brownfield land that would otherwise be unviable, so the actions that the government has taken with new delivery vehicles such as Platform 4 is a real step forward.
"However, these initiatives must be paired with meaningful collaboration between the public and private sector, alongside community engagement to ensure that we are not just delivering houses, but creating thriving neighbourhoods that are valuable for people, place and planet."
