Rishi Sunak's Spending Review 2020: what did the Chancellor say about London housing, Crossrail and cladding?
The Government will allocate £7.1 billion to a new National Home Building Fund next year, as announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the Spending Review 2020.
The fund forms part of the new National Infrastructure Strategy which will see a new infrastructure bank created, headquartered in the north of England, to finance major new investment projects across the UK starting from spring.
Today's £7.1 billion fund announcement is in addition to the £12.2 billion multi-year extension of the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) announced in the Chancellor's first Budget statement in March.
"The new AHP will deliver up to 180,000 new homes for affordable homeownership and rent, with a greater proportion outside of London than the previous programme," according to Spending Review 2020 documents.
What was announced in the Spending Review for London housing?
There will be over £600 million allocated in funding for 13 projects as part of the Housing Infrastructure Fund, which supports transport upgrades that can kick-start stalled housing developments.
A major project to watch is the £80 million East London line upgrade, which promises to "unlock" 14,000 new homes.
The north-south line runs from Highbury & Islington to West Croydon through south Hackney, Docklands and south-east London. It is plugged in to the London Overground network, which has been credited with transforming huge swathes of east and south-east London by connecting them up to the wider Tube network.
Development plans are afoot for thousands of new homes around Canada Water and Surrey Quays in Southwark, plus the 30-acre New Bermondsey site and a 40-acre Convoys Wharf site in Lewisham.
Remarkably for Zone 2, South Bermondsey currently only has a train station and isn't on the Tube network, but work on detailed plans for a long-awaited London Overground station is also now underway.
Transport for London says services from the station, between Queens Road Peckham and Surrey Quays will begin by 2025.
Those who remember the impact the Overground had on hipster hotspots Shoreditch and Hoxton around 10 years ago would be wise to keep an eye on this long-neglected neighbourhood.
Anything about Crossrail?
The Chancellor did not mention Crossrail today but Spending Review documents say selected London projects will include "continuing to address capacity issues by financing the completion of Crossrail."
A final instalment of £1.1 billion is needed to complete Crossrail, which will be known as the Elizabeth Line when it opens.
The bulk of this —£825 million — will come from the GLA but central government money was needed to make up the £275 million shortfall on the budget busting project.
Before the Chancellor's announcement, London's transport commissioner Andy Byford warned that Britain would become a “laughing stock” if Crossrail had to be mothballed due to an unresolved financial crisis.
The total cost of Crossrail has risen from £14.8 billion to more than £19 billion.
Originally due to have launched in December 2018, Crossrail’s central section linking Abbey Wood and Paddington via Canary Wharf and Liverpool Street is now not due to open until the first half of 2022.
Full service, from Reading and Heathrow to Shenfield and Abbey Wood, is not expected until 2023.
What about cladding?
It was confirmed in review documents that £1.6 billion will be made available to remove unsafe cladding from high-rise buildings.
There will be an additional £30 million for implementing a new building safety regime in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
However no mention was made of funding to support the removal of materials on buildings which are not considered 'high rise' i.e. those less than 18 metres high but which still have potentially unsafe cladding.
There are many other materials widely used to embellish new buildings that could potentially be unsafe, ranging from types of timber cladding to some high-pressure laminates or plastics on walls.
"Coronavirus rightly took up the majority of the Chancellor's spending commitments but there was precious little offered to the thousands of households trapped in potentially unsafe or worthless homes," says Mary-Anne Bowring of residential property consultancy Ringley.
“Having committed billions to protect us from the fall out of Covid-19, the Chancellor should also commit to spending whatever necessary to ensure that flat-owners aren't left to foot the bill for any cladding work needed on their building."