Agency ‘doing more with less’

The Homes and Communities Agency is responsible for the Government’s plans for affordable housing and stimulating economic activity.

Its remit spans a myriad of schemes, from getting more first-time buyers on to the housing ladder to speeding up the development of publicly-owned land.

The agency survived the Government’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ but its annual running budget was halved to about £77m. Offices were closed and it shrank from eight divisions to five, leaving it with 800 staff around the UK,

Chief executive Pat Ritchie took over in late 2010 “at a time of quite big change” for the agency, with a new Government and a “restated role and remit to reduce running costs”. Funded by the Government’s Department for Communities and Local Government, it has a capital budget of £6.8bn between 2011 and 2015.

“I certainly think that there’s a much greater focus from the Government on building and particularly seeing housing as both an investment in creating a home for somebody and an investment in the economy,” she said.

However, Britain’s housing crisis continues to worsen as building remains close to record lows while the population grows, social housing waiting lists lengthen and private rents soar.

Major housebuilders including Persimmon and Bellway are increasing output after recovering from the market trough, but overall housebuilding remains weak as smaller builders struggle.

In Yorkshire, just 9,800 new homes were completed last year, compared with a recent peak of about 16,000 in 2006. Around 118,000 homes were built in England in 2011, versus almost 171,000 in 2007 and a peak of 353,000 in 1968. Campaigners argue 250,000 new homes a year are needed.

“I certainly think we’ve got significant pressures on housing,” said Ms Ritchie. “You only have to look at waiting lists and targets that there are on housing provision.

“We have to also balance that with the need to ensure that the Government meets its spending targets, and do more with less.”

The HCA steers development across Yorkshire and the North East from its office in Leeds, run by executive director David Curtis, where it has about 70 staff.

It’s an area with more than eight million people, and significant challenges, admitted Ms Ritchie.

“London is a separate market where there’s still significant demand,” she said.

“The further you go out of London to some extent the more challenging the market becomes.

“The biggest constraints are really around availability of mortgages.

“That’s still the issue in terms of stimulating and moving the housing market. Most first-time buyers have to get a significant deposit and there’s a lack of mortgage deals.

“But with some parts of Yorkshire and the North East like Harrogate and Richmondshire there’s still quite a strong market.

“Things are coming back. If you look at Leeds, people are moving into some of the developments in the city centre.”

Last year the HCA took over the land and property holdings of now-defunct regional development agencies including Yorkshire Forward.

Its assets include part of Rotherham’s Advanced Manufacturing Park, Sheffield Digital Campus and Humber Quays in Hull.

It also holds a number of former coalfields including Barnsley’s Grimethorpe Colliery, Rotherham’s Roundwood Colliery and Doncaster’s Askern Colliery.

In July it finished Yorkshire Forward’s redevelopment of Leeds’ Tower Works, a new creative and digital zone.

“We work to local priorities,” said Ms Ritchie. “We’re driven by local government.

“It (Tower Works) is important in creating and retaining business within Leeds city centre. That’s 75 per cent let within three months of first-phase opening.”

Nationally, the HCA is working with developers to get more than 170,000 new affordable homes built by 2015.

This was given a £300m boost last month when the Government announced funding for another 15,000 affordable homes.

The agency regulates and part-funds housing associations, the main providers of new social housing.

It also runs the Get Britain Building programme, a £570m initiative announced in November 2011, intended to trigger development on sites with planning permission which have stalled in the recession.

These are sites which Ms Ritchie said “probably would have gone in a buoyant market”, but struggle in today’s climate.

Last month Greenhaven Homes Phase 1 Ltd, developers of Navigation Point, a scheme in Castleford on the site of the former Lambson chemical works, won approval for a £2.5m loan for up to 66 new homes on the site.

“Because of its history as a chemical works we are putting a loan in which will open up the site,” said Ms Ritchie. “We will put the money in upfront to get that money back when the houses are built.”

Under its Accelerated Land Delivery programme, the HCA aims to speed up the development of public land. One of its first projects is funding a new road at Carr Lodge in Doncaster, which will open up the site for more than 1,400 new homes.

The HCA also runs Decent Homes, the scheme to overhaul sub-standard council homes, and FirstBuy, a £280m shared equity scheme to encourage first-time buyers.

Gloom persists over housing

Housing activity in Yorkshire and the Humber region continued to fall in the third quarter, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

It called for Government action to stimulate the market after a survey found a balance of 21 per cent more chartered surveyors in the region reported decreases in public sector housing workloads in the three months to September.

Another four per cent more Yorkshire and Humber surveyors said private sector projects had also fallen.

Overall construction workloads also dipped, with builders’ margins also falling.

However, RICS also found “renewed optimism”, with a balance of 19 per cent more Yorkshire surveyors expecting construction firms’ margins to stabilise. Thirty nine per cent more surveyors also expect construction employment to grow over the next year.

Ian Tomlinson, of Leeds surveying firm Rex Proctor & Partners, said: “Lenders’ risk-averse approach is understandable given the criticism they have had for previous decisions, but the cycle needs to be broken somehow. Many of our region’s cities are forecast to grow considerably over the next decade but this may not happen if lenders do not back them.”