The Government’s budget delivers a welcome boost across those public sectors vital to the growth and wellbeing of our communities, particularly Education, Healthcare, Housing and Regeneration. Whilst we are aware the budget is only the beginning and there is much work to be done, we are inspired by this renewed focus and increased investment across key sectors. We believe it will empower us to deliver meaningful, impactful and sustainable solutions that support people, places, and the planet.
Budget delivers a welcome boost across those public sectors vital to the growth and wellbeing of our communities, particularly Education, Healthcare, Housing and Regeneration.
Education: Advancing High-Quality Learning Environments
Claire Wakelin, Head of Education
The government’s commitment to ensuring every child has access to high-quality education is something we strongly believe in and is highlighted with our track-record of designing high-quality, award-winning teaching and learning environments.
The government is committing to £6.7 billion capital funding allocation for education in England for 2025-26, a significant 19% real-term increase from 2024-25, including an additional £1.4 billion dedicated to the School Rebuilding Programme, providing much-needed investment to enhance learning environments across the country. We are looking forward to working with the Department for Education to support this programme, building on our experience from the MMC Framework and recently completed projects like the award-winning Trent View College. Through collaboration and innovation with the DfE, we are excited to continue creating forward-thinking, resilient places of education that enrich the lives of students, teachers, and the communities they serve.
We also welcome the additional £300 million for further education. This is an important advancement, as it addresses long-standing funding gaps in the sector. The government’s support in this area is an encouraging step toward ensuring a more equitable educational experience for all.
Healthcare: Transforming the Approach to Health and Wellbeing
Neil Orpwood, Associate Director, Healthcare
The budget’s emphasis on the wider determinants of health marks a positive shift toward a more holistic and preventative approach. With targeted funding for GP services and the mental health sector, we are optimistic that a broader, interconnected healthcare system is on the horizon, with less focus on acute issues alone and more investment in community health and preventative care.
We are also hopeful that the upcoming Secretary of State for Health’s report on the New Hospitals Programme (NHP) will prioritise sustainable improvements across all healthcare facilities, ensuring that every hospital—not just a select few—can aspire to higher standards of efficiency, resilience, and patient care. Additionally, while the resolution of the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) hospitals is an immediate priority, we see a valuable opportunity for these projects to set a benchmark for long-term, sustainable healthcare environments.
Residential: Thanks very much, but MORE please!
Anna Kiho, Head of Residential
The £500m additional funding in 2025-26 for the Affordable Homes Programme (AHP) was of course welcome news – more is better than none – and does demonstrate government bringing housing into focus. However, the measures announced are still far from what is needed for a ‘council housing revolution’. The extra funding is expected to support the delivery of up to 5,000 new affordable homes, which does not come close to the 145,000 needed per year up to 2031. The top-up is useful keeping up momentum of the AHP in the short term but given that the housing crisis is now really a housing emergency, more is needed and faster.
The Budget does set out the Government’s intention for future grant investment in Phase 2 of the Spending Review, so we’re back to ‘let us wait for the Budget and see’. A more significant top up of the social housing funding pot would certainly again be welcome, but we also need some fresh and radical thinking on the Government’s overall approach to funding social housing, such as considering supporting alternative housing delivery models. Investment in additional resource for planning departments is a positive step forward. However, whilst not a matter for the Budget specifically (give us Planning Reform!), let’s hope that the Government’s focus on delivering more housing finally also translates to housing becoming less political on a local government level and schemes will stop being turned down due to local pressures (planning committees vs. NIMBYs).
The £4.4bn in funding for cladding remediation and the government’s Warm Homes Plan will be helpful in providing some relief from the tension between building new homes and bringing existing ones to the necessary standard of being safe and healthy for residents.
Regeneration: Not the solution but a good physiotherapy programme for a country on its knees
Olivia Jackson, Head of Regeneration
So much has already been said about the Budget 2024 and as ever there is the usual criticism that it doesn’t go far enough. But not only were they never going to plug the enormous £22bn gap – I don’t think that is what they were aiming to do.
Town and city centres are vital economic drivers, so we are encouraged to see the government’s commitment to supporting investment in our town centres particularly with respect to business rates for the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors. However, this is only one part of the jigsaw to ensure that town centres remain vibrant. A cohesive approach integrating workplace, health and homes requires a more radical decision making at a local level.
We therefore welcome the move away from competitive bidding for highly prescriptive funding pots and a focus on devolution integrated settlements, which should provide the freedom and flexibility for authorities to do what is necessary for their communities.
The extra £500m added to the Affordable Housing programme, focus on a new long-term social housing rent and £3bn of additional support for SME’s and the Build to Rent sector is looking to diversify the housing market and provide much needed support for those looking to provide genuinely affordable products. Commitments to stabilised rents should also go some way to reassuring the private sector that social housing is a product worthy of investment. However, planning policy and the decision-making process remains one of the biggest challenges in realising the governments ambitions to grow the economy.
It will therefore be interesting to see how their ambition to reform planning, fast tracking of significant infrastructure projects, the potential ‘brownfield passport’ and the investment in 300 new planners translates into ‘get building’ rather than ‘keep talking’.
Reflecting on the Opportunity Ahead
Philip Watson, Chair and Head of Design at HLM Architects, comments: “The budget is a clear first indicator of a national reset on tax and public spending. More austerity was never going to be the answer, and while not a panacea, we see positive signs of investment in infrastructure that could lead to economic growth. A long way to go but at least the direction of travel has been set.”
