Budget 2017: The key points for construction

Image: Alamy

Construction Manager provides a run through of the key takeaways for the industry from Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget 2017.

Housing

• £15.3bn of new capital funding, loans and guarantees to support the housing market, giving a total of £44bn over the next five years, with the aim of delivering 300,000 net additional homes a year on average by the mid-2020s.
• A £630m small sites fund to unlock delivery of 40,000 homes.
• A further £2.7bn for the Housing Infrastructure Fund.
• £400m for estate regeneration.
• A £1.1bn fund to unlock strategic sites, including new settlements and urban regeneration schemes.
• A lifting of HRA (Housing Revenue Account) caps for councils in high demand areas, to help them start building again.
• £8bn of financial guarantees to support private housebuilding and the private rented sector.
• A review into the gap between planning permissions and housing starts, which has led to 270,000 residential planning permissions unbuilt in London alone, to be led by Oliver Letwin.
• Stamp duty abolished for all first-time buyer purchases up to £300,000, and on the first £300,000 of the purchase price of properties up to £500,000 in high demand areas.
• Grenfell Tower – a further £28m for regeneration support for the surrounding areas and a new community space for Grenfell United community group.
• Use of New Town Development Corporations to kick-start five new Garden Towns in areas of demand pressure.

Infrastructure

• A new £1.7bn Transforming Cities Fund, to be shared by the six areas with elected metro mayors to help them deliver on local transport priorities.
• £1bn of discounted lending available to local authorities across the country to support high-value infrastructure projects.
• An extra £8bn for National Productivity Investment Fund, to £31bn over the next six years.
• £123m for redevelopment of the Redcar Steelworks site.

Training

• Launch of the National Retraining Scheme, a partnership between government, the CBI and the TUC, with £34m for construction and £30m for digital skills.