New immediate measures designed to respond to the impact of the credit crunch on the housing market and maintain the delivery of new affordable housing, have been announced by Housing Minister Caroline Flint.

The measures are the first part of a wider package of action the Government will be announcing this month to increase confidence and help ensure stability and fairness in the housing market.

The announcements include: A further £270 million is today being allocated through the Housing Corporation to deliver an additional 3,800 homes for social rent and 1,500 shared ownership homes over the next three years; A new national clearing house is being set up where house builders can approach the Housing Corporation with robust proposals to sell their unsold stock for affordable housing; Increasing flexibility around when providers can bid for funding from the Government's £8.4 billion affordable housing programme; Increased funding flexibility so that the Housing Corporation will now have the option to offer more of the payment to housing associations and other developers delivering affordable and social housing at the start of schemes, helping to improve providers' cash flow, encourage new starts and stimulate wider market activity.


Minister Flint said: "I am determined that we do everything possible to continue to promote stability and fairness in the housing market, and maintain our long term focus on increasing housing supply.

"There is an overwhelming case for building more housing and we must remain as ambitious as possible. But we also have to be flexible and responsive enough to adapt to the current economic climate. We have to acknowledge not only the difficulties faced by individuals and families, but by house builders too.

"My objective is to put together a package of the best possible proposals, working with industry and others to minimise the problems we currently face and create the conditions for a rapid recovery.

"That means providing more help for potential first time buyers, ensuring the delivery of affordable homes remains as high as possible and maintaining capacity so that house building increases as fast as possible when we begin the upturn.

"Without this, there is a real risk that when the market picks up again, which it will do in time, we will see another unsustainable property boom, making homes even more unaffordable for first time buyers and growing families."

The National Housing Federation has welcomed the new proposals.

David Orr, Chief Executive of the Federation, said: "Caroline Flint is raising the right issues. We absolutely agree that we need to be responsive and flexible in this difficult market, and we are glad that the Government is rethinking the way it funds affordable housing - as we recommended in the proposals we submitted to ministers a fortnight ago.

"We also welcome the latest allocation of £270m from the Government's £8.4bn affordable housing programme, which demonstrates that housing associations are still doing their very best to meet their development targets in this difficult environment."

(CD/JM)