Housing associations ‘have no money to buy our affordable homes’

Housing associations are so short of cash that developers are struggling to find one willing to buy the affordable homes they are made to build, the boss of Taylor Wimpey has said.
In order to gain planning consent for their sites, housebuilders usually promise to deliver a specified number of affordable homes that they then sell on to housing associations to run.
However, those associations have been complaining for some time that they have little money for new homes because they are having to spend hundreds of millions fixing cladding, sorting damp and mould, and improving the efficiency of their existing stock.
Jennie Daly, chief executive at Taylor Wimpey, one of the country’s largest housebuilders, said it means at some sites her teams are struggling to find anyone wanting to buy the social housing they are told to build.
“We have these legal agreements that require us to [build affordable homes], but there’s no one to buy them and it’s creating delays and frustration on sites,” she said.
Within the section 106 agreements, which detail developers’ contributions to the local community, there are often clauses stating that housebuilders must have completed a certain proportion of social homes before they can build any more private homes for sale.
“These are completely sane measures, but when you’ve got no buyers, they start to become problematic,” Daly, 54, said. “For the small house builders in particular, this must be extremely painful.”
She wants the government to “give guidance” to local authorities to allow developers to build other types of affordable housing, such as shared ownership or discounted open market sales, instead when housing associations are not interested.
“I think that housing associations will repair themselves, but it’ll just take time,” Daly said. “I want government to recognise that there’s a transition period until they’re back in the market. Housebuilders are just trying to get on with their job.”
Daly’s comments came as Taylor Wimpey reported a “good performance” over summer, with sales picking up as a result of cheaper mortgages. Reflecting that, the FTSE 100 group expects its annual output to be “at the upper end” of its previous guidance of between 9,500 and 10,000 homes.
Shares in Taylor Wimpey rose ¼p, up 0.2 per cent, to close at 140p.