1,000 new Council homes for Hackney: ambitious social housing plans announced
Three quarters of the homes in a new programme of Council developments will be available for social rent after the Council set out plans to start work on at least 400 new homes in Hackney.
Alongside other housing projects, these will form part of the Council’s ambitions to start 1,000 new Council homes for social rent by 2026 to help tackle the cost-of-living crisis and continued housing shortage.
Direct investment from the Council will ensure at least 300 of 400 new homes across 15 locations in Hackney will be built for social rent and prioritised for local families who need them most, under plans approved by the Council’s Cabinet yesterday (12 December).
Previously the Council has relied on selling up to half the homes it builds outright to pay for genuinely affordable Council homes, in the absence of government funding for genuine social housing.
This one-off extra investment will boost the Council’s commitment to create at least 1,000 new social rent homes by 2026 using every means possible, including:
- A new programme of Council homes (at least 300 social rent homes)
- Accelerating existing house building plans (255 new social rent homes)
- Buying-back former Council homes (100 new social rent homes)
- Reinvesting income from right to buy sales to fund housing association partners (100 new social rent homes)
- Incorporating social housing in Council led mixed-use town centre developments (350 new social rent homes)
Since our in-house, not-for-profit house building approach began to reverse decades of decline in new Council housing in 2011, we’ve overcome austerity and government under-investment to fund and build hundreds of much-needed new Council homes for social rent – using an innovative model now followed by councils across the UK.
I’m proud of our reputation as award-winning Council housing pioneers. But as the housing shortage grows and the cost of living crisis hits, there’s a need to do even more to ensure as many as possible of the homes we build are prioritised for the people who need them most.
That’s why we’re directly investing in a new programme of Council homes, ensuring three in four of these are real social rent Council homes and reducing the reliance on selling homes outright.
This will mean we can deliver on our ambitions to start work on 1,000 new homes for social rent by 2026, using every means possible to deliver on that commitment through our own developments and alongside partners.