Its the Labour party verses the Conservatives, you can’t move for political party messages, marketing that leaves a bad taste in your mouth or something on the TV or radio about policies on the country’s debt, National Insurance or the National Health Service!
We’re very interested in all of these areas but the polices we’re most concerned about are those relating to Planning Permission, not just because we’re land agents but because there is a major need for change. The shelter website has reported that 1.8 million households are on the waiting list for affordable housing, meaning thousands of new homes need to be built soon and these houses HAVE to be built somewhere.
Where these new homes will be built is the big question, green belt land will in some areas need to be considered for development and this will be unpopular with locals. There will be pressure from local councils and housing groups from the off, so whoever comes to power will need to address the housing deficit in the correct way from day one if they’re to sort out the problems.
As we’ve said in the past the current system is well and truly BROKEN. As they say too many cooks have spoilt the broth as more and more rules have been brought in others have not been updated to take these new changes into account. The system is too confusing, too expensive and completely inefficient.
We look forward to reporting on any future changes!
Here’s what the main political parties are planning (taken from Centre for Cities Report);
Labour
Following Kate Barker’s review, the Labour government correctly identified supply as the fundamental housing problem, but has lacked boldness in tackling it. Setting a reasonably ambitious target of 240,000 new dwellings a year was a step forward, but there was insufficient recognition of the importance of building these in the areas of highest demand. As a result, resources were pumped into new development in low demand areas, while green belt was resolutely protected.
The community infrastructure levy will finally be introduced in April, although it may not survive a future Conservative government. CIL is a potentially welcome, if much delayed, innovation, but the rest of the local finance system has far too much central control and far too little local reward. The culture of local and regional targets, whilst cumbersome and bureaucratic, has at least provided some voice for those outside the housing market.
Conservatives
The Conservatives have released three green papers relevant to housing policy – “Control Shift”, “Strong Foundations” and most recently, “Open Source Planning”. The party professes that it is pro-development and correctly diagnoses the lack of local incentives as an important drag on house-building.
A Conservative government would match the additional council tax that local authorities earn from new housing, for a period of six years. In addition, councils would retain increases in the value of business rates – also for six years. Both of these proposals are a welcome step in the right direction.
The average Band D council tax is £1175, so a council would earn approximately £7,000 for each additional dwelling, over the whole six year period. If 1,000 new local homes were built, this would translate into £7m. Sharing this between the existing population (which averages 140,000 per LA), would amount to around £50 per person – or £8 per year.39 An incentive of this size may not be sufficient on its own to persuade reluctant councils, who will find their power to resist development greatly strengthened by the abolition of regional planning.
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats have also pledged to abolish housing targets, but the party’s commitment to greater local control over revenues would provide councils with financial incentives to promote development. The party’s Treasury spokesman Vince Cable has pointed to the large number of empty houses as a solution to housing needs.
Where it can be done cheaply this is highly desirable, but a quick look at the figures show that it cannot be more than a small part of the solution. 300,000 homes in England have been empty for longer than six months, which is only around one year’s worth of the new supply we need.
Searching for a house takes time, so it is inevitable that some homes will be vacant at any given moment. As a share of all homes, there are far fewer vacancies in England than in most European countries, and rates are lowest in the high demand areas of London and the South East.