Social housing budget to be slashed

Tomorrow’s Spending Review is likely to announce a 50% cut in the country’s social housing budget.
The National Housing Federation says it has been told housing is likely to be one of the biggest losers out of tomorrow’s (October 20) spending review. The result, the Federation says, will be to ensure affordable house building virtually grinds to a halt.

The Federation says cuts of 50% would effectively shut the door on an entire generation of families on lower incomes by withdrawing billions of pounds worth of funding for affordable housing schemes.

It also claims more than 360,000 jobs would be lost in the construction industry every year if cuts on the scale being proposed were introduced.

Federation chief executive David Orr said: “The government said it was committed to social housing and to protecting the most vulnerable. This can only be interpreted as a blatant betrayal of those promises and a kick in the teeth to millions of people stuck on waiting lists.”

There are currently some eight million tenants in social housing in England.