merrion street

Minister Eoghan Murphy, T.D., Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government today (24 July 2018) published the Quarter 1 2018 Social Housing Construction Projects Status Report, which sets out the continuing progress being made in advancing the national Local Authority and Approved Housing Body new-build pipeline.

The Minister also published details in respect of overall social housing delivery across all programmes for Quarter 1 2018, broken down on a local authority basis and tracked against 2018 targets. Key points of note:

•        At the end of Q1 2018, some 6,146 additional housing solutions had been provided across all local authorities in the quarter.
•        On the construction side, 3,932, were under construction at end Q1 2018; and some 1,989 homes had been approved and were about to go on site.
•        The full programme listed in the report now includes 930 schemes (or phases), delivering 14,813 homes – a very substantial increase on the 10,072 homes which were in the programme at the end of the same quarter last year.

Minister Murphy stated:

Earlier this year I committed to creating more transparency around local authority targets and delivery, and in April I published the full list of targets broken down by local authority. Today, we publish activity as measured against those targets for the first quarter of the year. Clear progress is being made across each delivery area but more needs to be done.

On the new build side alone, the Construction Status Report details new builds in social housing by local authorities and housing bodies, though excluding LA Part V and shows a positive increase when measured against the first quarter of 2017, with a roughly 60% increase in delivery of new builds. Not every local authority area saw completions in the first quarter but every Local Authority area has sites under construction.

What’s also encouraging about this is that the first quarter is typically the lowest quarter of activity in the year because our building programme is managed towards an uptake in delivery as we move towards the end of the year. We see this when we look back at 2016 and 2017. This is on track to happen in 2018 also.

Minister Murphy concluded,

My Department, local authorities, approved housing bodies, the Housing Agency and all stakeholders are committed and determined to driving delivery through to the successful completion of Rebuilding Ireland, and the future for social housing under Project Ireland 2040. Three Housing Summits have been held to date, with a fourth summit for Approved Housing Bodies schedule for the beginning of September. It is new processes like these that are helping to drive delivery.

Ends

Links

Full Q1 2018 Construction Status Report

Breakdown of Social Housing Activity by Local Authority – Q1 2018

Appendix One