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Without building more homes, a pledge to give people in the armed forces help with housing could be an empty gesture
When Terry Ferguson sealed the deal to buy his home less than a fortnight ago, he did not expect to be part of a national first. For Ferguson, a military policeman who had been struggling to get on the property ladder, it was about securing a stable home for him, his wife and two young sons. But the sale of the four-bedroom home near Telford in Shropshire is also notable for being the first in England since the government pledged that members of the armed forces would have priority in its £500m affordable home ownership scheme FirstBuy, which offers buyers a government and developer-backed equity loan.
As Ferguson explains, it can be tough for service personnel to buy a home, particularly because of overseas postings and frequent moves. "We move all the time so it's very hard to track us credit-wise. The homes we were looking at were out of my price range, but the scheme helped me raise my budget," he says.
According to the housing minister Grant Shapps, it is only right that "those who have put their lives on the line for their country" should be at the front of the queue for housing. After hosting a military housing summit with house builders, lenders and Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials earlier this year, he announced that the government would be exploring new ways of helping, including giving service personnel priority for other home ownership schemes and sending housing advisers on to military bases.
Orbit, the housing association that helped the Fergusons buy their home, is already running roadshows at MoD sites. Orbit chief executive Paul Tennant welcomes the focus on housing for the armed forces but says it needs to be backed by a serious improvement in the availability of mortgages to stimulate the building of more, desperately-needed, homes.
"We are very mindful of the issues that service personnel have when they come back from service or retire from service – they often have big housing problems," he says. "But unless we get an improvement in lending conditions, this will be a drop in the ocean. The demand is there, but the product won't be there and the only way to improve supply is to free up funding."
The Conservative MP for Salisbury, John Glen, who has campaigned on the issue in the House of Commons, says: "Welcome steps are being taken, but this needs to be taken seriously at all levels. Better financial education should be a big priority for the Ministry of Defence and we have to have creative solutions that reflect the fact that going overseas puts people at significant disadvantage for some lenders. People are being turned down because of where they going to be or unspecified concerns about risks. This is just wrong."
The FirstBuy scheme, which is aimed at helping up to 10,500 households, will help some military personnel. But what about those for whom home ownership is still out of reach? There has been significant concern that ex-service personnel are particularly vulnerable to ending up sleeping rough – although latest figures from the Combined Homeless and Information Network suggest that only 3% of those on the streets have a military background.
Shapps's package of measures on military housing also includes a commitment to work with councils to ensure that service personnel have a better chance of getting social housing. Some local authorities, most recently Wandsworth, in south London, have already announced that they will give a higher priority to armed forces personnel on council waiting lists. But with nearly 5 million people waiting for a council or housing association home, service charity Veterans Aid warns that it is unrealistic to expect too much.
"Even if you have got a local connection and have priority, if they don't have social housing available or there's a huge waiting list, it doesn't matter," says the charity's chief executive, Hugh Milroy.
Kate Murray
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