{"id":748723,"date":"2026-08-25T00:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748723\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:54:09","slug":"burnham-backtracks-on-spending-housing-fund-only-on-building-social-homes-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/748723\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnham backtracks on spending housing fund only on building social homes | Housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham has backtracked on his proposal to rip up the government\u2019s housing plans and boost social home building.<\/p>\n

Ministers laid out plans on Monday to spend an initial \u00a310bn from the 10-year Affordable Homes Programme on a mix of subsidised housing types in England, in line with the Starmer government\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n

Burnham previously called for the programme to be spent entirely on social homes, which are more heavily subsidised and therefore more affordable than other types of government-funded housing.<\/p>\n

He said when launching his campaign<\/a> to become MP for Makerfield: \u201cThere\u2019s \u00a339bn allocated over a 10-year period \u2026 I\u2019m saying that should be dedicated to council homes. Let\u2019s not be coy any more \u2026 I\u2019m saying council homes because control matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the plans announced on Monday, however, \u00a310bn will be spent helping to build 70,000 homes outside London, about 60% of which will be social rented houses. The rest will be other types of accommodation such as shared ownership schemes and sheltered housing.<\/p>\n

London will get another \u00a36bn, which will be allocated at a later date.<\/p>\n

Ministers said the investment would help bring the government closer to its promise of building 300,000 affordable homes over the next 10 years. It will be spent by 33 \u201cstrategic partners\u201d, who will be guaranteed funding for the next decade to help deliver their plans.<\/p>\n

The Guardian has learned that for the first time in the history of the scheme, three of those partners will be local councils, as the government looks to deliver what Burnham has promised<\/a> will be \u201cthe biggest council housebuilding programme since the postwar period\u201d.<\/p>\n

Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, said: \u201cGrowing up on a council estate and raising children as a young working mum, I know firsthand that access to a secure, affordable home can be a lifeline for families up and down the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuardian readers will know just how important council housing is too. You will know it\u2019s so much more than just a roof over your head \u2013 it gives working parents a safe place to raise their family, offers kids the stability needed to thrive in school and wraps a community around those who need it most.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThis once-in-a-generation investment will help rewrite these stories, delivering the genuinely affordable homes our country needs, getting people off waiting lists and helping families put down roots so they can get on in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials say that another \u00a316bn is yet to be allocated, and that social rent homes and council houses will be prioritised in future funding rounds.<\/p>\n

Sarah Elliott, the chief executive of the charity Shelter, said: \u201cToday\u2019s announcement puts councils back on the pitch in the fight to end homelessness. By giving local authorities some of the funding and support they need to start delivering social homes at scale again and ramping up the percentage of funds allocated to social homes, the government has laid the foundations for its council housing revolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there are still underlying obstacles which hold councils back from building. The government must use the autumn budget to finally remove these barriers, like unsustainable housing debt that councils are saddled with, to make the prime minister\u2019s vision of a new generation of social homes a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plans contrast with those announced by Reform UK<\/a> on Monday, which is promising to boost the supply of social homes by evicting foreign tenants and allowing housing associations to borrow more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham has backtracked on his proposal to rip up the government\u2019s housing plans and boost social home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-748723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}