Joint letter to the Secretary of State on the proposed Infrastructure Levy

Ahead of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill beginning its committee stage in the House of Lords, the NHF wrote to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove MP, setting out urgent concerns over the impact the proposed Infrastructure Levy will have on the delivery of affordable housing.

18 leading organisations from across the housing sector, including Shelter, Crisis and the GLA, signed the letter which calls on the government to ensure protections for affordable housing are included in its plans to overhaul developer contributions. In the letter we outline why we cannot support the Infrastructure Levy in its current form.

The Levy is the government’s proposed new way of calculating developer contributions towards affordable housing and infrastructure, and will look to replace current arrangements under Section 106.

We know that the present system of Section 106 agreements isn’t perfect, but almost 50% of all new affordable housing is funded through this way. Under current proposals, there is a chance that developer contributions could be siphoned away from delivering affordable housing to other, unspecified forms of infrastructure or local authority spending priorities.

The NHF has worked with Peers to table amendments to the legislation, including one to ensure local authorities set infrastructure levy rates at a level which would not result in a loss of affordable housing. Other amendments allowing for onsite delivery of affordable housing and also to prevent receipts being spent on items “other than infrastructure” are also due to be debated.