We aspire to contribute to a UK in which all households have access to affordable, safe and sustainable homes in places they want to live.

 

Access to secure and quality housing  is becoming increasingly challenging.  We’re uniquely placed to enact change and want to explore the opportunities to  increase access to the benefits of home  ownership, including through shared  ownership, supporting a quality rental  and social housing sector, taking the  building of housing that supports inclusive  communities further, and increasing the  availability of specialist housing.

We currently support one in five first-time buyers to get on the housing ladder and in 2022, we lent £14.3 billion to first time buyers.

Social housing is an integral part of the UK’s housing landscape with millions of people benefiting from stable and genuinely affordable homes. In 2022, we supported £2.1 billion of new funding to the sector.

What is social housing?

Social housing is typically supplied at reduced rent to those who would not normally be able to afford rent in the private rental sector or own their own home. It is normally provided either by housing associations or directly from local authorities. Government subsidies help to build and maintain social housing stock across the country.

There is a growing  market for shared ownership homes, where individuals take on a share of a property, usually 25%-75%, with rent being paid on the remainder. Housing associations are one of the biggest suppliers of shared ownership homes. 

Why is social housing important?

Social housing makes a significant contribution to the UK economy. As well as providing discounted rents for those who need them, social housing has also been shown by research to add value to society by reducing unemployment, improving health and improving educational attainment by providing stable homes.

It is well known that the UK has a housing shortage. In 2021, the sector was responsible for building around 40,000 homes, out of 210,000 built across the UK last year. But it is also clear that there is a shortage of social housing, with a shortfall 100,000 new social homes every year and over a million people currently on the waiting list in England alone.

We believe social housing is an important part of how we can help Britain prosper, and we are committed to continuing our support.

35,000

new social homes as a result of our funding*
*estimated

75,000

people housed*
*estimated

40,000

homes built in 2021 by the social housing sector

100,000

shortfall in social homes each year in England

What role does Lloyds Banking Group play?
 

The Group is the biggest supporter of social housing in the UK. Since 2018, we’ve supported around £15 billion of funding to the sector and we currently work with over 200 housing associations of all sizes, from small local associations of several hundred homes to larger regional associations with tens of thousands of homes. From Osprey Housing in North East in Scotland, to Grŵp Cynefin in Wales. Each of these has different needs, whether it is term funding, capital market funding or expertise and advice, our experience in the sector is helping these clients meet the UK’s housing needs.

Also through our pensions and long-term savings brand Scottish Widows, we are able to provide longer-term investment in social housing infrastructure that also provides reliable returns to our annuities and pensions customers. 

Meet the Teams:

Our latest insights

As longstanding supporters of the social housing sector, our experts have unique insights into the challenges and opportunities the sector is facing.

Let’s end homelessness with homes

Lloyds Banking Group has joined forces with Crisis and Simon Community Northern Ireland, calling for one million more social homes to be built by 2033, with a focus on helping people who are most at risk of homelessness.

20 April 2023 | Charlie Nunn and Matt Downie

Read the article

Keeping our homes safe and warm

As the cost of living continues to rise, it's vital that social housing is well maintained to help support people and families across the UK.

David Cleary | 13 Dec 2022

Read David's article

Why does social housing matter?

How Lloyds Banking Group is helping Britain prosper by supporting the UK’s vital social housing sector.

Charlie Nunn | 2 Nov 2022

Read Charlie's article

Sustainability linked financing

Sustainability based funding is becoming increasingly prevalent in the social and affordable housing sector with mutually beneficial outcomes for all parties involved.

Gavin Reid | 11 Jan 2022

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Is social housing really designed for those who need it most?

As the UK Government looks to retrofit social housing to make it more sustainable, we ask if we should also take this opportunity to help improve social housing accessibility standards?

Esther Dijkstra | 06 Dec 2021

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Meet our clients

We support over 200 housing associations across the UK, from small local associations of several hundred homes to larger regional associations with tens of thousands of homes. Here are some the stories around how we are working together to improve social housing across the UK.

Strata and Together Housing

Video | 1 min 

House builder Strata and housing association Together Housing are working to provide more sustainable homes that offer a high standard of living.

Watch video

Platform Housing

Decarbonising the Midlands largest housing association.

Centred on the provision of affordable, sustainable and quality homes for new and existing customers, Platform will push ahead with plans to move all of its homes to EPC C and above in the near future.

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Providing sustainable homes

UK homes currently account for 23% of the country’s total carbon emissions and 35% of energy use. At least 19m of the UK’s 29m homes still need to become low carbon, more energy efficient and more resilient to a changing climate. 

We’re helping homeowners understand the impact their home has on the environment and we’re educating, encouraging and rewarding them to take action to improve it. 

We’ll do this by providing £10bn of green mortgages over the next three years across our trusted Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands, and a new buy-to-let green mortgage product through Birmingham Midshires. We’ll also look to lend more money where we think improvements being made will improve the energy efficiency of the customer’s home.

Our actions will go beyond traditional lending too. We’ll provide a cashback incentive where customers buy a new property which has an EPC rating of A or B. We’re working with housebuilders so customers have affordable and easy-to-access opportunities to retrofit their homes, making them greener. 

 

The Housebuilding Sustainability Finance Framework

Our new Framework sets out how the Group will support housebuilders to access finance to build more sustainable homes.

More about the Framework


Working with the housing industry, we’re providing green financing and sustainable investment products to clients across both private housebuilding and social housing sectors to help them on their journey to net zero. 

Beyond investment products, we’re helping to shape national sustainability standards for housebuilding finance through our membership of the NextGeneration Executive Committee.

By supporting our customers to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, we’re able to make a big impact on reducing overall UK emissions on our path to net zero. 

And by improving the energy efficiency of these homes, we’re also helping to reduce running costs for customers over the longer term.

 

Creating zero carbon homes

Through the Housing Growth Partnership (HGP), we’ve recently helped Genesis Homes develop 16 homes in Calthwaite, Cumbria, that are 100% electric and from 100% renewable sources. This gives them the best possible EPC rating of A+. Also, as the home has been constructed with renewable energy products, the buyer will also benefit from a ‘green energy tariff’ from its energy supplier.

The home draws energy from an off-peak tariff from renewable sources, usually offshore wind, providing a significant financial saving for the home owner. This energy is stored in battery storage attached to the dwelling, and the home uses this battery storage during peak hours. Solar PV panels provide energy to a thermodynamic heat pump which supplies hot water to the dwelling.The heating in the home is infrared heating panels, significantly reducing electricity demand.


Lloyds Banking Group’s contribution to UK housing:

£14bn

lent to 64,000 first time buyers.

£10bn

of green mortgage lending by 2024. 

£15bn 

in new financing to the social housing sector since 2018, helping build over 35,000 homes.

£4bn 

in ESG linked funding to the social housing sector since 2021. 

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