Published - 4th September 2026
If, like us, you’ve been waiting for new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make a concrete announcement on housebuilding, your ears might have pricked up this week.
On Tuesday, Burnham’s newly-formed government made its first major move to boost housebuilding, allocating a £10 billion tranche of funding from the £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP).
According to the announcement, the funds will support the construction of 70,000 new council, social, and affordable homes, delivered through 33 strategic partners, including local authorities and housing associations. The aim – according to the government – is to get councils building again.
All funds currently allocated will be for homes outside of London, and of the £10 billion, one fifth will be allocated to mayoral authorities outside of London, in line with Andy Burnham’s vision of boosting the north and devolving more power to the regions. Funding outside of London will be delivered through Homes England. An additional fund of at least £6 billion will be funnelled through the Greater London Authority, reflecting the urgent need for more affordable homes in London.
Here in West Yorkshire, the estimate is that the region will receive around £441 million to deliver 4,000 new homes.
However, critics of Burnham point to his campaign promise of ensuring that all money would be allocated for social homes – in reality, only around 60 per cent of the funds will be spent on delivering social housing, with the remaining 40 per cent allocated to other types of accommodation, including shared ownership homes and sheltered accommodation.
At this year’s UKREiiF event in Leeds, social housing was a big topic. What immediately became obvious what that all parties had the same wish: to build more, and more quickly. But there was a healthy dose of cynicism about the government’s ability to deliver on its promise to build 1.5 million new homes by 2030, and one of the biggest barriers was lack of funding.
The availability of the funds released by SAHP goes some way to addressing this, and the fact that the allocations are being made to housing associations and to councils alike is encouraging, as it suggests that the money will be used where it is most needed. In particular, the fact that Mayoral Authorities are involved means that the North of England will hopefully not be left out in the cold.
The Northern Housing Consortium’s recent Renew inquiry, supported by Homes for the North and Muse, makes the case for housing-led regeneration across the most deprived areas of the North of England. The inquiry’s findings show that by building new, energy-efficient homes in cities and towns across the North, regions can boost economic growth and help city and town centres recover and start to prosper.
All of this hinges on the ability of towns and cities in the North to build new high-quality homes, to regenerate older, less desirable properties, and build on brownfield too. Hopefully, the funds allocated will capitalise on at least one of these opportunities.
Overcoming the barriers to building outside of London was another UKREiiF 2026 talking point, with financial viability a definite talking point.
It’s something the Northern Housing Consortium points out in the Renew Inquiry too, stating that lower land values (46 per cent lower than the English average) and property values (54 per cent of the national average) creates a ‘systemic viability gap’ in the North of England. What’s more, rent income is lower in the North, but repair costs are comparable with the national average.
The inquiry’s findings claim that only with government support for housing regeneration, driven by replacing ageing housing stock with new, healthier homes, can overcome this barrier.
So does the £10 billion allocation represent the first step towards overcoming these issues? And will it deliver affordable homes where they are most needed – or is the government backtracking on its ambitions before they have even begun? Like others in the industry, we will be watching closely to find out.
Harris »