Copyright bbc
The communities minister said that the "challenging financial context" required innovative thinking and that the changes "will achieve better value and more social homes for those who need them". He also pointed to the possibility of building on government land to reduce social housing costs, and another means of accessing finance as possible routes to increased house building, in spite of the funding cut. Speaking to BBC News NI's Evening Extra programme, Agnes Crawford, chief executive of Grove Community Housing, said it is "challenging news". "It means that we're heavily leaning on private finance and the rents will go up as a result of that, which is not what you want in an area of social deprivation," she said. The chief executive of the NI Federation of Housing Association Seamus Leheney said the announcement is "concerning". "Certainly, for places like Belfast, Lisburn-Castlereagh where the rates have gone down to 42%, I think there's a real serious need for housing associations to do the sums on that," Leheney said, warning that "there could be a lot of schemes in these areas that would be at risk of not proceeding based on the current rates". He said there could be homes that just won't end up being built due to the announcement. Mark H Durkan, the opposition's communities spokesperson said the announcement would see fewer homes being built and a deterioration of existing social homes. "It's hard to see how cutting their funding will achieve anything other than fewer homes being built," he said. "This cut will also impact the ability of Housing Associations to maintain existing properties and could lead to a situation where homes become inhabitable due to a lack of investment. "This is the last thing we want to see with our social housing stock under such pressure."
