Fewer affordable homes in England

Till March 2016, overall there were 33,332 housing starts on site and 25,315 housing completions delivered through programmes managed by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) in England, excluding London for all programmes except those administered by the HCA on behalf of the Greater London Authority between 01 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.The data shows that the majority, 21,304 or 64 per cent, of the housing starts on site in 2015/2016 were for affordable homes, which is a fall of 19% as against the 26,458 affordable homes reported in 2014/2015.

The data also shows that of the 16,544 affordable homes started in 2015/2016 were for affordable rent, a decrease of 24%, but the number for shared ownership and other affordable schemes at 4,158 rose by 25%. The remaining 602 were for social rent, a decrease of 52%