New Homes Bonus – Potential funding for community schemes

The New Homes Bonus is billed by the government as a powerful incentive for housing growth and is a key part of the housing growth focus of thier national strategy. It is based on the council tax of additional homes built within local areas and those brought back into use, with a premium amount for affordable homes, and paid for the following six years. The idea is that it ensures that those local authorities which promote and welcome growth can share in the economic benefits, and build the communities in which people want to live and work.

The New Homes Bonus commenced in April 2011, and will match fund the additional council tax raised for new homes and empty properties brought back into use, with an additional amount for affordable homes, for the following six years.

Provisional Allocations 2012-13

Housing Minister Grant Shapps announced the provisional allocations for 2012-13 last month and this has led to a flurry of interest from local community schems who could benefit from the money.

In his announcement Housing Minister Grant Shapps said:

“For years communities fought against development because they saw no evidence of how it improved their lives. Their experience of housebuilding under the old system top-down targets amounted to the wrong homes being built where they weren’t wanted, and their concerns about extra pressure on local services ignored” 

“So I’m delighted that after just one year of the New Homes Bonus this is now changing. There is a culture shift taking place across the country – communities going for growth are reaping rewards for their local area, and councillors are reporting that it is now much easier to lead a mature debate about the benefits of development”

“The bonus payments for new homes last for six years – so this year’s bonus is more than double the payment from year one, and it’s why communities that continue to welcome new homes can expect to see bigger cash bonuses and improved local services in the future”.

Provisional allocations for 2012-13 total £431m and Exeter will receive £389,165 for 2011-12

Full local authority allocations and on the online calculator are available below under ‘Related downloads’.

We are committed to ensuring that the Bonus remains a flexible, unring-fenced fund.  Local authorities are best place to understand the barriers to growth in their areas, the needs of their local communities and lead a mature debate about the benefits that growth can bring.

Background

The New Homes Bonus is based on past increases in housing supply. It is a powerful and simple incentive for housing growth, because it ensures that those areas which are growing have the resources to meet the needs of their new residents and existing communities. Local authorities are best placed to understand these needs and lead the debate about spending priorities. Wychavon have developed a protocol, whereby up to 40 per cent of the funding is spent by the community where the growth is taking place. While Dacorum are reinvesting the Bonus in further housing and business growth

The Department has set aside almost £1bn over the Comprehensive Spending Review period for the scheme, including nearly £200m in 2011-12 in year 1 and £250m for each of the following three years. Funding beyond those levels will come from formula grant. This ensures that the economic benefits of growth are returned to the local level .

Newtown Community Association (NCA) could soon have a new building due to funding soon to be released through the New Homes bonus.

The Community Association based in Belmont Park in Exeter has been drawing up plans for a new facility, which will be an exemplar of sustainable passive technology and provide the local community with a much needed updated facility for local clubs and groups to meet.

The NCA have been working with Exeter based Living Space Architects to create a Vision for the scheme which will shortly be submitted for planning permission.

Kirsty Curnow director of Living Space Architects said: “We have been working hard with the community to create a building that meets their needs and uses as little energy as possible and the NCA are delighted that the council may be able to provide some of the funding that is required to make the scheme viable”

Background

The New Homes Bonus is based on past increases in housing supply. It is a powerful and simple incentive for housing growth, because it ensures that those areas which are growing have the resources to meet the needs of their new residents and existing communities. Local authorities are best placed to understand these needs and lead the debate about spending priorities. Wychavon have developed a protocol, whereby up to 40 per cent of the funding is spent by the community where the growth is taking place. While Dacorum are reinvesting the Bonus in further housing and business growth

The Department has set aside almost £1bn over the Comprehensive Spending Review period for the scheme, including nearly £200m in 2011-12 in year 1 and £250m for each of the following three years. Funding beyond those levels will come from formula grant. This ensures that the economic benefits of growth are returned to the local level .

See related press notice and written ministerial statement  in top right hand corner of this page. 

The New Homes Bonus: final scheme design was published on 17 February 2011 (see Related Publications below).

Further information

For further information contact Kirsty Curnow Bayley at Living Space Architects www.livingspacearchitects.com

While we’re working in the design for Newtown Community Centre we’ve been trying to talk with as many of the users as we can and I was lucky to be invited to present to the Woodcraft Fold District meeting yesterday to present our scheme.

I have to admit Woodcraft Folk is not a group I had come across before, but I thought I should do a bit more research as they use the hut more than any other organisation.

http://www.woodcraft.org.uk/

So for those of  you like me that don’t know much about them they are a movement for children and young people, open to everyone from birth to adult. We offer a place where children will grow in confidence, learn about the world and start to understand how to value our planet and each other.

Woodcraft Folk runs on the passion and energy of thousands of volunteers, most of whom help at a local Woodcraft Folk group and who may have been in Woodcraft Folk as children, or whose own children may attend a group. With the support of regional and central resources, local Woodcraft groups decide their own programme and co-ordinate their own events and camps. Young people take an increasingly active role in planning and leading their own activities, and helping with District co-ordination. 

Whilst sharing many of the same historical roots as the Scouting movement, The Woodcraft Folk’s direct antecedent was the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, an organisation led by ex-Scout Commissioner for Woodcraft and Camping John Hargrave, who had broken with what he considered to be the Scouts’ militaristic approach in the years immediately after the First World War. The Woodcraft Folk was established by Leslie Paul in 1925 after the south London co-operative groups challenged Hargrave’s authoritarian tendencies over his refusal to recognise a local group called “The Brockley Thing” and broke away from the Kindred. In its early days it was very similar to the Kibbo Kift, with a strong pagan and anti-capitalist emphasis, but gradually developed its own distinct ethos.

The name ‘Woodcraft‘ was used by the influential writer and naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton at the turn of the 20th century when setting up the American proto-Scouting organisation Woodcraft Indians, and in this context meant the skill of living in the open air, close to nature.

I was pleased to meet the Exeter Woodcraft Folk and hear their views about what we had designed so far.  They were really positive about the project and gave me some helpful sugestions about how they might use the space.  I hadn’t considered all of the implications of running a club with 20 11 year olds running around the centre one day and 20 3 year olds the next!  Design is definitely a process and it’s a lot easier when you get to talk to the people that will actually use your building.