£7bn 'affordable housing' programme announced as housing budget doubles

Speaking, Osborne said that the 'affordable housing' plan is "the biggest house building programme by any government since the 1970s" and will include the building of 400,000 new homes.

£2.3bn will be paid directly to developers to build “starter homes” for first-time buyers, while £4bn will be spent on 135,000 Help to Buy: Shared Ownership homes. He announced that the government will "remove many of the restrictions on shared ownership – who can buy them, who can build them and who they can be sold on to."

Last month, the government announced that its affordable housing programme will now include Starter Homes as well as properties for rent, and old rules requiring developers to provide a certain amount of affordable housing for rental purposes will be scrapped.

In May, the government announced plans to deliver 200,000 Starter Homes by the end of the decade, to be sold to first-time buyers under the age of 40 at 20% discount off the market price.

Osborne said that the government also remains committed to extending the Right to Buy to housing association tenants, revealing a new pilot scheme.

He explained:

"From midnight tonight, tenants of 5 housing associations will be able to start the process of buying their own home.

"The third element of the plan involves accelerating housing supply.

"We are announcing further reforms to our planning system so it delivers more homes more quickly.

"We’re releasing public land suitable for 160,000 homes and re-designating unused commercial land for Starter Homes.

"We’ll extend loans for small builders, regenerate more run-down estates and invest over £300 million in delivering at Ebbsfleet the first garden city in nearly a century."

Christian Faes, co-founder & CEO, LendInvest commented:

"Compared with the major housebuilders whose costs are great and red tape is thick, small developers are faster to build and more flexible for local authorities to work with.

"Pound for pound, small developers are worth the investment and every effort to supporting them is welcome. Small-scale developers will be an engine for growth in the housebuilding sector provided their access to finance is supported and more land is unlocked for development."