70,000 homes, one big test for Labour’s housing plan.

The government has confirmed where the first 70,000 social and affordable homes under its £39bn programme will be built: Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North East England, Liverpool — and £6bn for London, the largest single allocation.

It’s the opening instalment of a 10-year plan to deliver 300,000 social and affordable homes across England, with over £16bn still to be allocated outside the capital. 60% of the new homes will be for social rent.

The scale of need is significant: 1.34 million households are on social housing waiting lists, and homelessness in temporary accommodation continues to rise. Only around 12,000 social rent homes were delivered last year, against an estimated need of 90,000 annually — so the pressure on this funding to convert into delivery, fast, is considerable.

For London in particular, that £6bn will move through the GLA’s affordable housing grant programme — and navigating GLA grant funding rounds, eligibility criteria and delivery conditions is exactly where we spend a lot of our time at Lowick Hedry. If you’re a housing association, developer or council partner trying to work out how this allocation affects your pipeline or your next grant bid, we’d be glad to talk it through.

Delivery, not announcements, is what this will be judged on.