£10bn for affordable housing!…but now comes the difficult bit.

The recent announcement from Homes England is a huge moment for affordable housing delivery.

Thirty-three strategic partners have been awarded a whopping £9.58 billion through the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme, supporting more than 70,000 homes across England outside London. Nearly two-thirds of the homes delivered by strategic partners are expected to be for Social Rent.

For housing associations, councils and their development partners, that long-term funding certainty is very welcome indeed…

But now comes the difficult bit. Those homes still have to get through planning.

And anyone working in development knows that having an identified housing need, an allocated budget and a strong planning case does not necessarily make securing consent straightforward.

Indeed, affordable housing can sometimes find itself at the centre of exactly the same difficult local debates as any other development: traffic, infrastructure, pressure on services, landscape impacts and, sometimes, simply resistance to change.

This where good engagement really matters.

At The Community Communications Partnership, we work with developers and housing providers long before an application reaches committee.

Our approach starts with understanding the politics of a place. Who needs to be engaged? What are councillors worried about? What matters to the Parish Council? What are the community concerns that could be addressed before positions become entrenched?

The CCP are experts at community engagement – at public drop-in events, through virtual exhibition websites, and even on their doorsteps.

Good consultation shouldn't be an exercise in presenting a finished scheme and asking people whether they like it. Done properly, engagement can identify problems, improve proposals, build relationships and give decision-makers confidence that a developer has genuinely listened.

There is another part of the conversation which we think the development industry has historically been much less good at finding.

The people who actually need the homes... they are out there!

Planning committees routinely hear from people worried about new development. Far less often do they hear from someone waiting for a social home, a young person living with their parents because they cannot afford to move out, or a family being priced out of the community in which they grew up.

That is why we have created a campaign to find people who Support Affordable Homes (see here: www.supportaffordablehomes.co.uk)

Our campaign is designed to find those missing voices and give people who support well-planned housing a straightforward way to participate in the debate.

Not to drown out opposition. Not to manufacture support. And certainly not to suggest that every development should be approved.

It is about ensuring that consultation is genuinely representative – that decision-makers hear from both sides, not just the organised objectors.

Today's funding announcement creates a huge opportunity. Housing providers now have unprecedented certainty to build at scale.

The next challenge is turning that investment into sites, planning permissions and ultimately front doors.

That requires good planning, of course.

But it also requires political understanding, meaningful community engagement and the confidence to make sure all sides of the housing debate are heard. That's exactly what we do at The CCP.