A NEW estate of affordable homes has received a visit from the Housing Minister as the Government begin to push its investment into housing.

A newly constructed housing estate in Redcar was the host for Chris Pincher, the Minister of Housing, who came to see first-hand the investment into new houses in the area.

This follows a recent government announcement that they intend to help thousands of people onto the housing ladder as funding worth £8.6 billion is allocated across the country.

Part of the largest single investment in affordable housing in a decade, the Affordable Homes Programme funding will deliver around 119,000 homes, including 57,000 for ownership, 29,600 for social rent and 6,250 affordable rural homes.

The cash injection could support up to 370,000 jobs across the country for homebuilders, SME developers, and wider businesses supporting the house building industry such as electricians and plumbers. This is expected to generate up to £26 billion of other private and public investment. 

Around half of the new homes from this £8.6 billion funding will be available for affordable homeownership, helping even more young people and families to get a foot on the housing ladder.

This follows other government schemes to help first-time buyers into homeownership including First Homes, offering new homes at a 30 per cent discount on the open market value, and the 95 per cent mortgage guarantee scheme, which helps first-time buyers secure a mortgage with just a 5 per cent deposit.

On a visit to Redcar Housing Minister Chris Pincher said: “Redcar is at the heart of our levelling up agenda. It has received a huge cash injection from the towns fund and money from the coastal community fund.

“So we want to invest in the infrastructure and the skills in these areas.

“Building these houses will provide a base to do that, these homes will be a mix of rented, shared ownership and fully owned houses.

“This is so that everyone has the opportunity to get on the housing ladder.

“Usually when big housing developments are started then locals have one or two concerns. However, with this site, there has been no concern, in fact, people have been wanting.

“They are seeing their area get enhanced with really nicely designed estates and hopefully it will all help in levelling up the town.”

Jacob Young, Conservative MP for Redcar, said: "It's fantastic to see the new homes that are being built by Vistry, Linden and Beyond Housing, but also to hear about the new plans for a supported living coming to this site as well.

"This is all about our plan to provide more homes locally, for local people, in the right places, to help people get their first home but also to help people transition out of homeownership into and into care in the community.

"I've been talking to Beyond Housing about the real need in our community for that supported living so that elderly people who are transitioning out of living in their own homes can still live independently but have that level of care provided as well.

Today’s funding allocations marks an important step towards the government’s mission to deliver up to 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s.