Registered social landlords are worried the Housing Corporation will not change the way it evaluates scheme costs because this would force it to miss government housebuilding targets.
The sector warmly welcomed signals last week that the corporation would consider including whole-life costs in its total cost indicator, the method used to evaluate grants for new developments (HT 25 April, page 9).

This would encourage housing associations to include more sustainable materials and technology in the homes they build – measures that raise the initial price but lower lifetime costs.

But development professionals said the corporation would shoot itself in the foot if it made any change that raised the cost of schemes because the number of homes built would drop.

Karen MacDonald, development manager for Parkside Housing Group, said: "The idea that less homes may be built is not acceptable – this needs the funding to match the sentiment. However, it must be kept simple – developers have to understand it."

Ed Bartlett, associate director at quantity surveyor Cyril Sweett, said the new way of accounting for whole-life costs would have to be carefully constructed. "There is a [potential] difficulty that the system would allocate the capital funding from one source – the Housing Corporation – and life costs from another," he said.

"For it to be effective, it can't be seen as just a box-ticking exercise."

Source

Housing Today