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April 2023 - Housing

Survey reveals the barriers to the development of more supported or older people’s housing:A survey of National Housing Federation (NHF) members has uncovered the barriers which are preventing organisations from developing more supported or older people’s housing.

The survey was conducted between December 2022 and January 2023 and gathered responses from 76 NHF members. The results from the survey will feed into the organisation’s work on the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill and support its work in Older Person’s Housing. The same survey was conducted in 2021 to enable a comparison of findings, with the most recent survey uncovering that “the environment in which housing associations are operating has only become more challenging from the first year the survey was carried out.”

Respondents were asked about the barriers to developing more supported, or older people's housing and invited to place options from a supplied list in order of importance. It found that the top response given was 'capital grant available per unit is too low', followed by 'planning and availability of land' -- which were also the top two issues highlighted in the 2021 survey.

Barriers to development

1. Capital grant available per unit is too low

2. Planning and availability of land

3. Reduction in commissioned support

4. Short-term support contracts and/or erratic commissioning decisions by local authority

5. Social/affordable rent levels too low to secure scheme viability at available grant rates

6. Lack of backing from the local authority or local Integrated Care Board

7. Building safety costs for existing homes

8. No other funding available

9. Local Housing Benefit team not agreeing eligibility on rents and service charge

10. Financial impact of below inflationary rent rise 2023/24

11. Decarbonisation costs

12. Lack of access to affordable finance

13. Lack of local demand/need

14. Other

15. Lack of access to move-on accommodation

In addition to ranking barriers, respondents were given a further opportunity to provide more detail, which drew 39 comments. The most common barriers raised here were:

• Availability/level of capital grant funding

• Long-term and secure revenue funding

• Valuable and long-term support contracts

• Prohibitive build costs

• Access to and cost of acquiring land

• Planning issues

The research also found that almost seven in 10 respondents (69%) said they would have greater ambition to develop more homes if the conditions allowed.

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