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<p><strong><em>Decentralisation</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>The Coalition Government
decentralised housing, regeneration and economic development to the Mayor of London
from April 2012. This enables him to shape programmes and direct funding to meet London’s
needs.</p><p> </p><p>As part of the transfer of housing and regeneration functions
we provided a capital grant of around £2.6 billion to the Greater London Authority
up to 2014-15 to fund the housing and regeneration programmes inherited from the Homes
and Communities Agency, the London Development Agency and for the development of the
Olympic Park.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Budget measures</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>Our
commitment to support London was set out in the recent Budget, where the Government
set out the following proposals for London:</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>£1
million to allow the London Land Commission to create a comprehensive database of
public sector and brownfield land.</li></ul><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>£7 million
to the Greater London Authority to support the development of the Croydon Growth Zone.
This could unlock over 4,000 homes and 10,000 jobs.</li></ul><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>£97
million of funding and a ring-fenced local 50% share of business rate growth to support
the London Borough of Barnet and the Greater London Authority’s plans for the regeneration
of Brent Cross. This will unlock approximately 7,500 homes of which at least 15% will
be affordable.</li></ul><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>Consult on giving greater
powers over planning on sightlines and wharves to the Mayor of London, allowing the
Mayor to accelerate provision of new homes by reducing planning delays.</li></ul><p>
</p><p><strong><em>Affordable housing investment</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>Government
funding for new affordable housing in London is as follows: 2010-11: £1.1 billion
(outturn), 2011-12: £712 million (outturn), 2012-13: £400 million (budget), 2013-14:
£392 million (budget); 2014-15: £516 million (budget). However, this understates the
total expenditure on new affordable housing in this Parliament. Across England, our
affordable housing programme in 2011-15 is delivering £19.5 billion of public and
private investment in affordable housing; about a quarter of which is being provided
in London.</p><p> </p><p>This investment continues to contribute to the provision
of new affordable homes for Londoners, of which 51,300 had already been delivered
in London between April 2010 and the end of September 2014.</p><p> </p><p>A further
£1.07 billion has been allocated from the 2015-18 Affordable Homes Programme, to deliver
another 32,000 new affordable homes in London. In addition a further £180 million
has been allocated from the Affordable Homes Guarantee Programme to deliver 8,700
homes. The Greater London Authority has so far announced initial grant allocations
of £404 million to deliver 18,000 new homes and are now inviting further bids on a
continuous market engagement basis. Again, the grant funding understates the total
anticipated expenditure on affordable housing. We will deliver a total of 275,000
new affordable homes across England in 2015-20, with £38 billion of public and private
investment. London’s allocation for 2018-20 has not been finalised.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Building
more rented accommodation</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>The London Housing Bank is a
new housing fund intended as a springboard to home ownership for aspirational working
households on lower incomes. Through London Housing Bank, we are providing the Greater
London Authority with £200 million of low-cost loan funding to deliver 3,000 – 4,000
new homes by March 2018.</p><p> </p><p>The Greater London Authority has already announced
the first allocations of funding from the London Housing Bank, which will help deliver
intermediate rental homes. These schemes include: Peabody Homes in Thamesmead; Isis
part of the wider Hale Wharf regeneration site; and Quintain part of the continued
regeneration of Wembley Park.</p><p> </p><p>Under our £1 billion Build to Rent fund
we have contracted 4 schemes in London worth over £63 million and delivering 671 homes
for private rent.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Improving social housing</em></strong></p><p>
</p><p>We have awarded Decent Homes Backlog Funding of £821 million to 14 London Boroughs.
This funding has so far made 42,110 homes decent. Gap funding granted to stock transfer
landlords of £24 million has helped ensure that less than 0.9% of their stock failed
the Decent Homes Standard at the end of March 2014.</p><p> </p><p>A further £145 million
has been awarded to 9 London Boroughs to tackle their remaining Decent Homes Backlog.
This will help to ensure that no more than 10% of stock in each local authority is
non-decent by April 2016.</p><p> </p><p>We have also taken steps to protect leaseholders
from excessive works charges imposed by local authorities.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Reducing
empty housing</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>We have provided the Greater London Authority
with £29 million to bring 1,600 empty homes back into use as affordable housing. Our
full package of reforms to tackle empty housing is outlined in the written answer
of 17 March 2015, Question 227326.</p><p> </p><p>London Boroughs have been allocated
a total of £720 million of New Homes Bonus funding for 2011-2016, recognising over
140,000 additions to stock, and over 15,000 long-term empty properties returned to
use. Almost 50,000 of these also received the premium for affordable homes.</p><p>
</p><p><strong><em>Supporting self-build and custom build</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>In
July 2012 we launched the Custom Build Homes Loan Fund and we delegated £5 million
to the Greater London Authority to administer schemes in London. Bids exceeding this
were submitted to the Greater London Authority and £4.8 million was allocated. We
have exempted self-builders from Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 tariffs.</p><p>
</p><p><strong><em>Promoting home ownership schemes</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>Since
the start of the Help to Buy scheme in March 2012, over 5,300 families across London
have brought a home using the support of a Government loan or guarantee, of which
over 4,200 sales were to first-time buyers. This includes 2,430 under the Equity Loan
sales scheme (of which 2,304 were to first-time buyers), 2,175 under the Mortgage
Guarantee sales (of which 1,955 to first-time buyers) and 721 Newbuy sales (data is
not available for the number of first-time buyers).</p><p> </p><p>We have reinvigorated
the Right to Buy, with a proportion of the sales receipts being used to build new
housing. This increases housing supply, moves people up the housing ladder and gets
people off waiting lists.</p><p> </p><p><strong><em>Supporting locally-led regeneration
schemes</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>We, with the Mayor, are investing each investing
£200 million to create 20 new Housing Zones which will deliver 50,000 homes in London.
The Mayor announced the first eleven Housing Zones in London in February 2015.</p><p>
</p><p>We are working with the Greater London Authority and Transport for London to
unlock 11,000 homes at Barking Riverside.</p><p> </p><p>We have invested around £125
million through Get Britain Building for twenty two schemes which has resulted in
starts for 3,000 homes. The schemes include:</p><p> </p><p>Brentford Locks West –
Get Britain Building funding enabled the first phase of this mixed use scheme by Isis
Waterside Development to be delivered, bringing forward the first three blocks which
deliver a total of 150 homes.</p><p> </p><p>Grahame Park, Brent – Get Britain Building
funding unlocked a phase of this major regeneration scheme that had stalled. The first
block of homes was completed in March 2014 with the final homes due to complete in
March 2015.</p><p> </p><p>Lewisham Gateway - Get Britain Building funding will deliver
193 units and indirectly support the delivery of an additional 701 homes.</p><p> </p><p>We
have shortlisted four housing estates in London for a share of a £150 million Government
loan fund for Estate Regeneration. These schemes are in Grahame Park, in Barnet; Blackwall
Reach and New Union Wharf, in Tower Hamlets and Aylesbury Estate, in Southwark. They
would provide more than 8,000 new homes, of which more than 3,000 would be additional
homes</p><p> </p><p>The Government announced in 2012 a UK Guarantee which would allow
the Mayor of London to borrow £1 billion at a new preferential rate from the Public
Works Loan Board to support the Northern Line Extension. We have aslo recently made
regulations allowing the retention of 100% of business rates growth in the area from
which to fund the borrowing. The extension is critical to the realisation of the £8
billion Battersea Power Station redevelopment, as well as the wider regeneration of
the Vauxhall and Nine Elms area.</p><p> </p><p>Surplus Public Sector Land capable
of delivering almost 28,000 homes has been sold in London. This was critical towards
helping us achieve our wider ambition to dispose of land for 100,000 homes across
England by the end of March 2015.</p><p> </p><p>We have supported a number of other
regeneration projects in London. These include:</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>£141
million capital grant to the Greater London Authority for Olympicopolis – this project
aims to develop a new education and cultural quarter on the Olympic Park.</li></ul><p>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>£10 million capital funding for the London Enterprise
Fund to support the regeneration of Croydon and Tottenham (2011-12).</li></ul><p>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>Royal Albert Docks Enterprise Zone - we awarded a grant
of £12 million from the ‘Building Foundations for Growth’ fund which is designed to
accelerate progress on the zones to maximise long-term job creation. This supports
the Mayor’s priority for growth in East London and building on past 30 years of regeneration
in the wider area. Regeneration of the Royals will support the convergence of East
London with the wider city area.</li></ul><p> </p><p><strong><em>Tackling homelessness
and rough sleeping</em></strong></p><p> </p><p>We have supported the Mayor in tackling
homelessness in London through:</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>£34 million grant
to tackle rough sleeping across London;</li></ul><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>Developing
a pioneering £5 million Social Impact Bond to improve the outcomes for a large group
of persistent rough sleepers in London;</li></ul><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><ul><li>Providing
£3.8 million from the Homelessness Transition Fund for the No Second Night Out scheme
to help new rough sleepers off the street quickly in London; and</li></ul><p> </p><p>
</p><p> </p><ul><li>Allocating £2.8 million of Single Homelessness funding in 2011/12
to take forward a package of measures to prevent and tackle single homelessness, including
rough sleeping.</li></ul><p> </p><p>In addition we have provided £167 million Homelessness
Prevention Grant to local authorities in London to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.</p><p>
</p><p>There is more to do, but I hope this illustrates the decision action taken
by this Government to build more affordable homes and help people move on and up the
housing ladder.</p>
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