Corporate report

The Affordable Homes Programme annual report 2024 to 2025

Published 7 January 2026

Introduction

Purpose of this report

This report fulfils a commitment the department made to the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) following its hearing into ‘The Affordable Homes Programme since 2015’. The Committee recommended that:

The Department should report annually to Parliament on the performance of the Programme with detail on types, tenure, size, and quality of homes built by local authority area.

Background on the department’s Affordable Homes Programmes

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government delivers the Affordable Homes Programmes to increase the supply of affordable housing. These programmes deliver housing for sale or rent intended for those whose needs the market does not meet.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) administers funding and manages delivery for these programmes in London. Homes England performs this role in all other English Regions.

The programmes provide grant funding to housing providers to support the costs of delivering affordable homes. The mix of home types (tenures) varies between the programmes, and includes homes for:

• Social rent – homes let by local authorities or housing associations with guideline rents determined through a national rent regime. Often rent charged is around 50% to 60% of local market rents (outside London).
• Affordable rent – homes let where rent charged is up to 80% of local market rents.
• Affordable home ownership – includes shared ownership and Rent-to Buy. Shared ownership is where a purchaser takes out a mortgage on part of a home and pays rent to a housing provider on the remaining part.
• Specialist homes/supported homes – adapted homes, often for older people or younger people with a disability or homes with support, supervision or care provided alongside to help people live independently.

Homes England and the GLA offer grant funding to organisations through Strategic Partnerships and through Continuous Market Engagement (CME). Strategic Partnerships cover multiple schemes and are for organisations that have a strong delivery track record and have ambitious development plans to build new affordable homes at scale and pace. CME allows providers to apply for funding for individual schemes on an ongoing basis.

Contents of this report

This report includes information on all homes delivered before March 2025 through the Affordable Homes Programme for 2016 to 2023 (AHP 16-23) and the Affordable Homes Programme for 2021 to 2026 (AHP 21-26).

The information in this report draws on published official statistics by MHCLG and accredited official statistics by Homes England, as well as published statistics from the Greater London Authority (GLA). This report also draws on some additional insight provided by Homes England and the GLA.

The Affordable Homes Programme for 2021 to 2026

Programme targets and funding agreements

In 2020, the government of the day confirmed an overall budget of £11.5 billion for AHP 21-26. £100 million of this budget was invested through the First Homes scheme. £7.4 billion was allocated to Homes England for homes outside of London and £4 billion was allocated to the Greater London Authority for homes in London.

At that time, the government announced that this would provide ‘up to 180,000 homes, should economic conditions allow’. In September 2022 the National Audit Office’s report on the AHP noted that the targets that the government set its delivery agencies totalled 157,000 homes at the time of the 2021-2026 programme launch.

In early 2023, the then government asked Homes England and the Greater London Authority (GLA) to carry out a renegotiation exercise, allowing AHP contractors (registered providers of social housing) to submit revised bids, to take account of higher than expected increases in constructions costs and other pressures on social landlords’ financial position since contracts had been signed, including interest rates, impacts of building safety regulations and the cap on rent rises in social housing in 2023 to 2024. Providers were also asked to increase the proportion of social rent homes.

Revised targets were agreed with the GLA and Homes England following this renegotiation, reflecting the sum of these individual contracts, and forecasts on future delivery through contracts still to be awarded.

In July 2024, the department published revised targets for the programme (i.e. for combined delivery by the GLA and Homes England) as follows:

A target range of 110,000-130,000 homes with:

a. At least 40,000 social rent homes
b. 44,000 to 56,000 affordable homes for ownership
c. 5% of delivery for supported housing
d. 5% to 10% of Homes England delivery for rural housing

The programme is currently on track to achieve these targets. There are no targets for delivery in individual years.

Within this overall target range, Homes England have confirmed a lifetime objective to deliver between 89,000 and 103,000 affordable homes.

In February 2025, the Greater London Authority (GLA) noted ongoing issues with delays to building safety requirements (with London disproportionately affected by high rise buildings) and continued wider economic factors continuing to affect scheme viability. This resulted in a revision to the delivery target and a range agreed with government to deliver between 17,800 and 19,000 affordable homes with the original £4 billion AHP 21-26 budget. This reduction does not change the government’s overall targets for the programme, which remain as set out above.

In October 2024, the government announced £500 million in new funding as a top-up to the Affordable Homes Programme, to deliver up to 5,000 new affordable social homes. In February 2025 the government announced a further boost to the programme’s budget of £300 million, to deliver up to 2,800 extra homes to be built. These homes are in addition to the targets set out above, for the programme’s baseline budget.

Almost all homes under AHP 21-26 should be started by March 2026 (with limited exceptions e.g. for Long Term Strategic Partners to deliver starts by March 2027). All homes outside London must complete by March 2029. In July 2024 the government confirmed changes to deadlines for some to allow completions up to a year later.

Programme delivery to date

By March 2025 AHP 21-26 had delivered 82,395 starts on site and 33,072 of these homes had been completed. The tenure types for completed homes are as follows:

Type	Homes
Social Rent	6,355 (19%)
Affordable Rent	13,016 (39%)
London Living Rent	18 (0.05%)
Affordable Home Ownership	13,683 (41%)
Total	33,072

These figures include 4,808 homes (12% of total homes completed) for supported housing.

3,744 (12% of delivery outside London) of these homes were delivered in rural areas.

1,911 completions are through acquisitions.

London Delivery

AHP 21-26 delivery got underway in 2023/24, following the final affordable housing starts achieved in London for AHP 16-23 in March 2023. By March 2025 5,188 affordable homes had been started in London. 871 of these homes had been completed.

The tenure types for completed homes in London were as follows^{[footnote 1]}:

Type	Homes
Social Rent	666
Affordable Rent	170
London Living Rent	18
Affordable Home Ownership	17
Total	871

These figures include 114 homes for supported housing.

Homes England Delivery

By March 2025, 77,207 affordable homes had been started outside of London and 32,201 of these homes had been completed. The regional breakdown for this delivery was as follows:

Region	Starts	Completions
North East	5,446	2,576
North West	17,717	7,009
Yorkshire and The Humber	7,197	3,292
East Midlands	9,545	3,943
West Midlands	7,925	3,632
East of England	9,324	4,442
South East	10,884	3,922
South West	9,169	3,385
Totals	77,207	32,201

Tenure types for completed homes outside London were as follows:

Type	Homes
Social Rent	5,689
Affordable Rent	12,846
Affordable Home Ownership	13,666
Total	32,201

These figures include 4,808 homes for supported housing.

23% of these homes were delivered through Modern Methods of Construction (MMC, see below for more details).

3,744 (12%) of these homes were delivered in rural areas.

The Affordable Homes Programme for 2016 to 2023

AHP 16-23 had a final budget of £9.8 billion (half to invest in London and half for outside London) and a target to deliver around 250,000 new homes. The programme’s deadline for homes to start was March 2023, however, a number of homes outside London were allowed the flexibility to delay their start until March 2024.

AHP 16-23 allowed ‘nil grant’ homes to count towards programme delivery (i.e. affordable homes that were supported to come forward by AHP investment but were not directly funded). ‘Nil grant’ homes are not counted towards delivery figures for AHP 21-26. AHP 21-26 also delivers a higher proportion of homes for social rent, which results in higher grant rates, bringing down overall delivery figures compared with AHP 16-23.

By March 2025 AHP 16-23 had delivered 250,142 starts and around 20% of these were ‘nil grant’ homes). By March 2025 210,058 of these homes had been completed.

Tenure types for completed homes were as follows:

Type	Homes
Affordable Rent	89,298 (42%)
Social Rent	36,166 (17%)
Intermediate Rent	4,867 (2%)
London Living Rent	923 (0.4%)
Affordable Home Ownership	78,834 (38%)
Total	210,058

London Delivery

In London 116,782 affordable homes have been started, all of them ahead of the GLA’s March 2023 deadline. Around 32% of these were ‘nil grant’ homes. By March 2025 84,718 of these homes had been completed.

Tenure types for completed homes in London were as follows:

Type	Homes
Social Rent	25,906
Affordable Rent	21,181
Intermediate Rent	4,867
London Living Rent	923
Shared Ownership	31,841
Total	84,718[footnote 2]

Homes England Delivery

Homes England delivered their last starts towards AHP 16-23 in the 2023/24 financial year. Outside London 133,360 affordable homes have now been started, including 13,000 ‘nil grant’ homes. By March 2025 125,340 of these homes had been completed.

The regional breakdown for this delivery was as follows:

Region	Starts	Completions
North East	10,418	10,143
North West	29,755	28,069
Yorkshire and The Humber	14,633	12,933
East Midlands	12,792	12,865
West Midlands	18,679	17,694
East of England	12,696	12,219
South East	20,161	18,137
South West	14,226	13,280
Totals	133,360	125,340

Tenure types for completed homes outside London were as follows:

Type	Homes
Social Rent	10,260
Affordable Rent	68,087
Affordable Home Ownership	46,993
Total	125,340

These figures include 13,882 homes for supported housing delivered so far outside London.

Further information on programme delivery

Size of homes

The department recognises the importance of providing homes of appropriate sizes to meet the diverse needs of residents. There are no overall national targets or requirements on the sizes of homes built, and these decisions are left to local stakeholders to agree - including social housing providers and local planning authorities. The size of homes is therefore determined by local housing need and site viability.

In most areas, 2-bedroom properties are highest in demand. Shared ownership 1-to-2-bedroom flats are popular in many locations as part of mixed tenure schemes, or as part of open market led sites.

GLA have delivered 61% of homes with two to three bedrooms. Overall, GLA have delivered 22% of homes with 3 bedrooms or more through all GLA affordable homes programmes since 2015/16.

74% of Homes England’s homes funded by AHP 16-23 and AHP 21-26 were sized between 2 to 3 bedrooms, with a smaller volume (21%) of 1-bedroom properties built.

Quality of homes

The programmes both place a strong emphasis on the quality of affordable homes, ensuring they meet the necessary standards for comfortable and sustainable living. Quality and design principles were embedded into the bidding processes for the programmes, with recognised standards and assessments used to consider the overall merits of affordable housing schemes.

It was encouraged, though not mandated, that partners assess their scheme against Building for a Healthy Life (BfL), with details requested in the process where appropriate. For AHP 21-26 to date outside London, schemes that have considered BfL have an average design rating of 10.1 (scale of 1 to 12).

Since June 2023, the department has allowed the use of grant towards replacement homes on regeneration schemes, on the condition that such schemes increase the total number of homes. This will mean that more regeneration schemes become viable, and the programme can support housing providers to replace outdated, inefficient, and poor quality stock with new housing, whilst continuing to meet the programme’s objective of increasing supply.

For delivery in London, the London Plan sets out housing design and sustainability requirements which all homes delivered through the programmes are expected to meet. These requirements align with the National Design Guide. More detail on these are available in the London Plan.

Modern Methods of Construction and sustainability

AHP 21-26 has an ambition to deliver a proportion of homes (25% for Strategic Partners, and 10% for Continuous Market Engagement) by using modern methods of construction (MMC). The programme is on track to meet this target.

AHP 21-26 encourages the delivery of more energy efficient, sustainable homes, but there are no set criteria that providers must deliver. However, as part of the application process, strategic partners were required to set out how sustainability is embedded across their business, including providing an average Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) rating for energy performance of their homes.

Partners will often include enhanced specification for environmental performance where viable to do so, with a view to reducing long-term running costs of the homes in the long term.

Annex A includes number of case studies of projects supported by the Affordable Homes Programmes.

AHP 2021 to 2026 evaluation

The government committed to a robust independent evaluation of AHP 21-26 as part of the department’s Housing Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy. A scoping study was published in August 2022 setting out recommended research questions, suggested methodologies and data requirements.

The resulting evaluation includes three elements, taking place in three phases from 2023 to 2029 and spanning the entire programme: 

• A process evaluation asking whether the AHP 2021-26 activities and outputs were delivered effectively.
• An impact evaluation asking whether the expected outcomes and impacts were achieved within the timescale of the programme.
• A value for money (VFM) evaluation asking whether the programme was a good use of resources.

A report containing interim findings will be published in 2026 in line with Government Social Research guidance. Further information regarding the evaluation can be found on the Government’s Evaluation Registry.

The Social and Affordable Homes Programme for 2026 to 2036

In March 2025 the government announced a £2 billion investment boost to deliver up to 18,000 new social and affordable homes. This investment boost came as a down payment ahead of more long-term investment in social and affordable housing. These new affordable homes will start construction by March 2027 and will complete by the end of this Parliament.

At the last Spending Review, in June 2025, the government announced a new 10-year £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) to kickstart social and affordable housebuilding at scale across the country. The government shared further details in its policy paper ‘Delivering a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing’. This is the biggest long-term investment in social and affordable housing in recent memory.

On 7 November 2025, the delivery agencies launched guidance to bidders for the SAHP and the government published a policy statement to accompany this guidance. The government and the delivery agencies plan to open the SAHP for bids in February 2026.

Annex A: Case studies

Asfordby Hill, Melton

Provider: Sage Homes RP Limited

Developer: Avant Homes

Local authority: Melton

Programme: AHP 21-26

Total number of homes: 72 Social Rent 10 Affordable Rent 8 Shared Ownership

Homes England grant: £10.4 million

Completion date: Phased completions June 2025 to December 2025

• Asfordby Hill was intended to provide just 23 affordable homes through the S106 agreement, with the remaining 67 designated as Market sale.
• Following the announcement of an additional £400 million to Homes England announced in the October 2024 Budget, Sage approached Strategic Partnership colleagues for additional grant to enable the delivery of the scheme as 100% affordable.
• The 72 social rent homes will help to relieve the pressure on the local authority’s social housing waiting list.
• The project is the first 100% affordable scheme by Avant Homes.
• Homes will be completed to EPC B or higher.

Elm Grove Estate – London Borough of Sutton

Provider: London Borough of Sutton

Local authority: London Borough of Sutton

Programme: AHP 21-26

Total number of homes: 276 of which 50% will be affordable homes benefiting from AHP 21-26 grant

GLA Grant: £33.475 million

Completion date: January 2030

• The London Borough of Sutton Council is delivering 276 new high quality sustainable homes. The new development will replace the current 73 homes across the Elm Grove Estate including the existing building at 216-220 High Street (Market House) resulting in the provision of 203 additional new homes.
• The Affordable Housing Programme 2021-2026 has funded the 50% of homes which are affordable creating 1, 2 and 3 bedroom, wheelchair and PassivHaus homes. All homes have private open space, the scheme enhances biodiversity and provides solar panels on roofs, shared courtyards and gardens.
• The regeneration will also transform the existing surroundings with a new pedestrian link to the High Street, recreational play, a cycle-friendly environment, and high-quality public realm and landscaping, thereby aligning with the vision outlined in the Sutton Town Centre Masterplan. The first new homes will be delivered in 2028.

Hartopp Point and Lannoy Point

Provider: Hammersmith & Fulham Council

Local authority: London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham

Programme: AHP 16-23

Total number of homes: 134, of which 112 homes benefiting from AHP 16-23 grant

GLA Grant: £10,030,375

Completion date: April 2026

• The Hammersmith & Fulham Council are delivering 134 new energy-efficient homes.The new homes are being built within the Aintree estate on the former site of Hartopp Point & Lannoy Point towers, which were demolished for health and safety reasons.
• The project will deliver 134 homes in total of which 112 (84%) will be affordable and benefiting from AHP 16-23 grant. The tenures cover 28 London Affordable Rent, 45 London Shared Ownership and 39 Social Rent homes. Across these 112 homes, 88 are larger, family homes. In addition to these 112, there will be 22 homes available to buy as leasehold homes – a total of 134 new homes.
• A highlight of the new development is that it is going to be built to ‘Passivhaus’ classic standards – the most energy efficient standards of homes in the UK.
• The completed development will use ‘blue’ and ‘green’ roofs; it will also have air-source heat pumps and solar panels which will help residents to save on their energy bills.
• The development will also include play spaces, electric vehicle charging facilities and cycle storage for local residents.

Constantine Trebarvah

Provider: Coastline Housing Ltd. 

Date of completion: 18 June 2025 

Local authority: Cornwall Council 

Contractor: EBC Partnerships Ltd 

Designer: 4D Architects Studio 

The scheme: 17 x Social Rent, 8 x Shared Ownership (5 bungalows, 20 houses)

Total scheme cost: £6,709,185 

Homes England Grant: £2,333,000 

• Constantine is a rural village on the Lizard Peninsula. Historically, housing delivery across all tenures has been low, and the housing need has remained relatively high. Coastline has existing affordable housing stock within the village.
• The aim was to deliver a mixed tenure 100% affordable housing scheme for local people within the Parish, with the priority to deliver a higher proportion of bungalows on this scheme.
• This scheme is in a rural location in walking distance to the school and all local village amenities.
• 25% of the homes are compliant with accessible and adaptable dwellings standards, with 5 bungalows also delivered.
• The homes are heated by ground source heat pumps.
• This was the first scheme Coastline secured planning on with the 10% Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) planning requirement.

Key challenges:

• The location of the site was challenging with requirements for an LVIA. The ground conditions were also challenging with granite bedrock, and clay soil leading to poor infiltration testing, requiring specialist drainage strategies here. The planning progressed through the COVID-19 Pandemic, and it was challenging to ensure the Parish Council were kept informed throughout the process due to technical difficulties and the inability to meet in person.
• Coastline had difficulty in securing an electric connection as the original route required an easement through third party land, and the landowner would not deal with National Grid. After months of negotiations and an agreed overage position, the landowner was unhappy with the easement exclusion zone imposed by the utility company, and thus Coastline ended up having to change the route through an alternative third-party landowners field.

Lessons learned:

• This scheme was the first for Coastline with the BNG requirement, and so a lot of the planting particularly the raised beds are non-standard and will potentially cause maintenance issues over time.

1. The Greater London Authority publish a detailed breakdown of their affordable housing delivery by programme here: Affordable Housing statistics - London City Hall ↩

2. The Greater London Authority publish a detailed breakdown of their affordable housing delivery by programme here: Affordable Housing statistics - London City Hall ↩