“There is no longer a job retention issue in the public sector, so the sector is no longer a government priority,” explained Helen Towner, a relationship manager with the Homes and Communities Agency speaking at a Council of Mortgage Lenders conference in London today.
At a national policy level, existing social tenants are followed by military personnel, with local authorities able to set their own local priorities after these two groups. Local authorities can still prioritise key workers but only after the military’s housing needs have been met.
Frontline military staff will be prioritised for affordable housing, with the ability to sub-let written into mortgage lending agreements, said the HCA.
The move to drop key workers down the pecking order for affordable housing was agreed in February following engagement with all key worker bodies and will be formally announced in April, said Towner.
The move is part of a comprehensive overhaul of the government’s affordable housing rules, including measures intended to simplify the process from mandatory mortgage calculators on local authority websites to evidence of affordability assessments.
