The Green Party have spoken about housing, calling it an “unaddressed crisis” in their manifesto launch.
Carla Denyer, Party leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, went through their pledges of more social homes, and said that they will “provide affordable housing through our right homes, right place, right price charter”.
The Green Party are pledging to provide 150,000 new genuinely affordable social homes every year and an end to Right to Buy. They are also pledging £4 billion over the next five years to insulate other buildings to a high standard. Commenting in the manifesto, Anthony Codling, RBC Capital Markets, said:
“The clue is in the name, but the Green Party’s housing policies are focused on building green homes, funding insulation of existing homes and protecting the Green Belt. It also has some rather radical policies on planning, where once a local plan has been set there will be no negotiation with developers. We are not sure how this would work, but perhaps wisely the Green’s have not included any headline grabbing housebuilding targets. If the Green Party were to be elected housing supply is likely to reduce in our view, and the relationship between them and the housebuilders is likely to be a rocky one. Like a curates egg, the Green’s housing policy is good in parts, but unlikely to crack the current housing crisis.”
What’s more, they also want net zero years ahead of target and have spoken about the environment – saying other parties are “running away” from solutions to the climate crisis and state that their plans offer “real change”. Adrian Philip Ramsay, politician and co-leader of the Green Party, said:
“Protecting our climate and nature lies at the heart of our policies. A secure energy supply and action in climate crisis go hand in hand.”
Also, this week the Liberal Democrats have published their manifesto in which outlines their commitments should they be elected at the General Election on July 4th. The party would:
- commit to increasing the number of new homes being built to 380,00, of which 150,000 would be social homes, a year.
- ban no-fault evictions, standardise the length of tenancy contract to three years and create a register of licensed landlords.
- abolished leasehold tenure and cap ground rents; something it had been hoped would be achieved by the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act passed on the final day of Parliament, but ended up being significantly watered down from its original intentions.
