Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to support the building of new social housing in the South West.

There are a number of innovative social housing projects in the South West, with social housing providers actively working with SMEs, leveraging small sites to increase delivery and offering custom build affordable housing.

The Government is continuing to support the delivery of social housing in the South West and across the country. We are providing over £9 billion funding for the Affordable Homes Programme, this includes an additional £2 billion available for social rent.

We have confirmed long-term rent certainty for social landlords in England and announced that we will be providing councils with £1 billion of additional borrowing to deliver homes where demand is greatest. In March we announced plans to consult on options for allowing local authorities more flexibility in the use of their Right to Buy receipts.

These measures will support housing associations and local authorities to build more genuinely affordable homes where they are needed most, including areas of high affordability pressure such as the South West.

Since 2010, we have delivered over 378,000 new affordable homes including over 273,000 affordable homes for rent. The Department does not publish delivery information on a regional basis.

The Nelson Project in Plymouth, for example, is a custom build partnership which supported returning veterans by training them to build their own homes. 24 affordable apartments were delivered, housing twelve veterans, six persons from the housing waiting list, and six people with mild learning disabilities. The returning veterans gained skills, qualifications and experience of the construction industry, making them more employable and helping them to assimilate into normal civilian life. The Government supported this project with £880,000 of funding.

Another innovative approach that received government funding is a development of low energy affordable homes in Somerset. Built in partnership between Southwestern Housing Society and Man Green Homes, the homes are extremely energy efficient and help to future proof again fuel poverty.