£39bn Affordable Homes Programme (10-Year)

Commitment: Invest £39 billion over a 10-year Affordable Homes Programme to deliver affordable and social housing across England.

Owner: HMT / MHCLG / Homes England

Target date: 10-year programme (start date and end date to be confirmed in programme details)

Metric: Affordable homes delivered; social rent units delivered; total programme spend.

Status: active

Context

The Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) is the government’s primary mechanism for subsidising affordable housing delivery. The £39bn commitment represents a significant scaling up from previous programmes.

The programme is a key component of the mhclg-housing-1-5m 1.5 million homes target — affordable homes are a substantial share of the delivery mix, typically delivered by housing associations and local authorities with Homes England grant funding.

Programme types typically included

• Social rent (lowest cost; highest subsidy)
• Affordable rent (up to 80% market rent)
• Shared ownership
• First Homes (discounted market sale)

Relationship to 1.5 million homes target

The 1.5 million homes target encompasses all tenures. The AHP funds affordable delivery that the market would not provide at the required scale without subsidy. Grant funding from Homes England enables housing associations to cross-subsidise social rent from market sale revenues.

Key tensions

• housing-biodiversity — Affordable homes programme is part of the wider housing delivery that intersects with nature recovery targets; NRF and BNG apply to AHP-funded schemes
• Infrastructure capacity: affordable housing delivery depends on the same planning, utility connections, and construction workforce as market housing — compounding the skills-shortage-cross-sector tension