HPA attend Foundations For The Future launch in Parliament

With a reported 1.3m families in England currently waiting for a home, the government has made the delivery of high-quality homes a key priority, pledging to create 1.5m homes over the course of this Parliament. 

Earlier this year, HPA Architects director Richard Wooldridge was asked to attend in his role as a member of the RIBA’s Expert Advisory Group for Planning and Housing.

Richard shared HPA’s experiences of trying to deliver housing in the Lancaster and South Lakes Area with MHCLG, RIBA Staff and one of the Peers attending the meeting.

The RIBA launched a proposed solution to tackle the housing crisis in the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday 5th March 2025 in front of an audience of cross-party MPs, Peers and Industry Experts. 

The RIBA ‘Foundations for the Future’ proposal sets out an innovative vision and model for the delivery of publicly funded affordable housing. The scheme works on the idea of building on council-owned land to generate a mix of much-needed affordable and social housing, which after an initial investment, becomes self-sustaining. 

The proposed model is based on a one-off initial investment from central government to local authorities to facilitate the delivery of social homes.

This is used by local authorities to build homes for both social rent and market sale on land which is free at the point of use, such as local authority-owned land.

 The receipts from market sale homes are then reinvested to build further homes for both market sale and social rent.

Not only does this promote mixed-use development but reduces reliance on continuous central government funding to secure social housing provision.

The ‘Foundations for the Future’ event was significant for RIBA in their ongoing efforts to help shape the future of housing across the country and was a vital opportunity to engage with and garner support from MPs, Peers and civil servants from across the political spectrum.

The presentation was introduced by Mike Reader MP, led by Jack Pringle (chair of the RIBA Board), and supportive comments were made by Florence Eshalomi MP (chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee) and Kevin Hollinrake (Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government).