Housebuilding will play a key part in Labour’s plan to help more people get a foot on the housing ladder, and that will mean granting local authorities greater powers to purchase land to develop property.
The National Housing Federation (NHF) has welcomed a pledge from the Labour Party to introduce greater compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) to help councils purchase land and boost housing development.
If elected, a Labour government would intends to build 1.5 million new homes within the first five years of entering power, while also increasing funding for local planning officers by £25m.
Shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook told the press: “To boost housebuilding and create great places for people to live, we need to deal with outdated rules that inflate the cost of land to the benefit speculators.
“A labour government will remove ‘hope value’ costs on specific types of schemes that meet a public interest test.”
The NHF is supportive of this policy with CEO Kate Henderson welcoming the pledge.
She added: “Providing more people with access to homeownership should be one part of a holistic approach to solving this crisis, with shared ownership being a key option for first time buyers.
“In order to ensure all have access to the home they deserve, however, this must sit alongside a major investment in a new generation of social homes, the most affordable and secure tenure for people on low incomes, as part of a nationally coordinated fully funded long-term plan for housing.”
They can build as many homes as they want but it will not help the 2 million on the housing waiting lists who would not be there if they could afford to buy a home. We have no shortage of homes to buy anyway…just look around England is just one big building site. My own small town has almost doubled in size because of house building. The Duchy is building a small town here with 4,000 homes, a school and a new high street. But our housing waiting list is still growing. When will Government realise, any Gov. the only shortage is for rental property, not everyone can be a home owner. With 28,000 on my local waiting list priority is given to those with mental health problems which has encouraged thousands to now claim benefits for mental health. My local council now only build homes for sale at a profit but continue to blame second and holiday lets for the housing shortage. There is no housing shortage for private ownership.
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Supply that outstrips demand will (eventually) reduce the RELATIVE value of properties. We MUST get back to a sensible ratio between real terms take home pay and rent/ mortgage payments.
This needs to be done with care and planning and cannot be changed at the whim of the next bunch in power for 4 years.
Our electoral system of First Past the Post means that we are constantly governed in a short term manner that appears to have been quietly hijacked in the background by corporate interests and greed.
These are VERY scary times indeed.
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Net migration figures 2023 – 685000 more people
New homes built 2023 – 158190
When is someone going to do the maths?
Even if you manage c. 300,000 a year for the next 5 years ( and lets be honest despite having targets now , they are no where near met ) it still wont be enough and what about affordable homes ? – homes people can buy or rent and afford at a realistic price to their take home salary. Current housing policies and the supporting infrastructure is hopelessly at odds with the needs of the population, not enough hospitals. drs, schools, dentists etc etc etc. Its not as simple as build more homes to buy, it has to be about build homes to rent and the infrastructure around them.
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