It is ambitious, it is punchy, and it is headline-grabbing; 1.5 million new homes during the parliamentary term and it’s lacking the devil details.
The UK has not built 300,000 new homes a year since 1977 and that was a combination of private enterprise, housing associations, and local authorities.
The two areas for me in the devil details yet to be published are affordability and what dwelling style Labour means. Starter homes are in short supply, rather than apartments or executive 4/5 bedders, and the government reliance seems to be upon private enterprise to detonate a boom in building, but again the areas split for me – how do construction firms earn a profit and secondly do we have an untapped workforce of bricklayers, plumbers, electricians readily available to take up the mantle or do we have skills shortage?
Perhaps the new Chancellor recalls her words from 2013 vowing to cut welfare bill and force long-term jobless to take up work offers or lose state support is this the enormous apprenticeship and back to work vessel that will solve a skills shortage or is the plan a reversal of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and more ‘Hello love’.
The focus on loosening the planning system, development land, and introducing 300 new planning officers shows intent, and the new phraseology of national need trumping local importance, shifts the dynamic away from the nimby. How could anyone possibly oppose?
So with released land, additional human resources, and less red tape, it all comes down to affordability. Now government has said today that they are not getting into the business of building homes but how about financing them? Eureka! The government will also help first-time buyers and young people with a new Freedom to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme and give local people first-dibs on new homes in their area.
If the Government can join the dots in the devil detail then it may be onto a winner. Fire up the brick kilns, heat the raw meal, and break the ground, the building bonanza could be upon us.
Christian Lister is Operations Director for X-Press Legal Services
