Housing associations’ role in helping the economy to recover

We held a roundtable last week with housing associations, the Housing Minister, and MHCLG, as part of our work to shape how we emerge from the coronavirus crisis in the coming months and years.

Last month, we started a project with our members to help understand how the housing sector can help communities and the economy to recover after the coronavirus crisis has eased.

Last week, we held a roundtable with the Housing Minister that focused in particular on two key strands of this work:

• How we can get the sector building again quickly when the crisis begins to ease.
• A plan for long-term housing delivery to ensure that everyone has access to a good quality, affordable home.

We were clear about the sector’s commitment to build homes and discussed some of the barriers and challenges to resuming development projects, and potential policy ideas to remedy them.

The Minister was positive about the part that housing associations can play in helping the economy recover, and we’re planning a follow-up meeting later this month.

To help us steer our thinking on the post-coronavirus recovery, we’ve created a member steering group and are working with existing national member groups and regional chief executive forums.

We’ll be sharing more information soon about each of the five strands of this work and the next steps. In the meantime, get in touch if you have thoughts, challenges or ideas to share.