Homes England misses completions targets due to labour and materials shortages

Delays added around 20 weeks to delivery times, which meant fewer homes were delivered in their expected timeframes, Homes England added.

“Our affordable homes programmes are a core contributor towards our completions and over the past year partners have reported challenges in delivering completions,” the agency’s annual report said.

“This has mainly been due to delays and access to labour supply and materials.”

Homes England said that with the Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme 2016-21 timebound, its strategic partners and housing delivery partners raised concerns of losing delivery because of limited access to materials and labour, and no capacity to stockpile.

Peter Denton, chief executive of Homes England, pointed to “capacity issues in the planning system” and “nutrient neutrality challenges” for the reasons the agency missed its targets. 

But he added: “These challenges have not resulted in lost delivery and across the longer term Homes England remains on course to achieve its objectives.”

Homes England said it protected the delivery of homes by securing budget flexibility from its sponsoring department – the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities – to cover its commitments. This helped to absorb delays to material delivery, providing housing associations with the confidence to continue delivering, the agency said. 

Homes England’s report also revealed that in its last full year its starts were 21 per cent below its target but exceeded the previous year by three per cent.

The body said that there was a “major drive” by its delivery partners to start on site as the Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme 2016-21 reached its final year. 

A Homes England spokesperson said: “Against a backdrop of continued economic uncertainty, we’ve sought to maximise our delivery performance over the last year.

"Despite these headwinds, we’ve directly supported the completion of 37,632 new homes, 26,953 of which are affordable. 25,279 new homes have been built that would not have happened without Homes England intervention, and we’ve unlocked land with capacity for more than 58,900 homes to be built.

“We want to praise our affordable housing partners for the determination and flexibility that they have shown to get more homes built during a volatile period.”