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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to support (a) the building of social housing and (b) other elements of estate regeneration.

The Government is committed to increasing the supply of social housing and has made £9 billion available through the Affordable Homes Programme to March 2022, to deliver 250,000 new affordable homes of a wide range of tenures, including social rent.

The Government has also given certainty over future rental income by allowing housing association and local authority landlords to increase rents by up to CPI+1 per cent from 2020. On 29 October 2018 the Autumn Budget confirmed that the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap had been abolished entirely and with immediate effect, giving councils the tools they need to deliver a new generation of council housing.

The Estate Regeneration Programme is currently supporting and working with over 100 estates across the country.

£290 million of loan funding has been made available to provide long term finance for estate regeneration.

In March 2017, £32 million of grant funding was awarded to over 100 estates around the country to accelerate schemes at the early stages of regeneration and build access to commercial skills.

Gloucester City Homes received £1.249 million of enabling grant to support the early preparatory and planning work for two estates in Gloucester.