Thursday, October 05, 2017
Tory pledge on new council housing is not good enough
It was hardly the housing revolution that we had been led to expect. Theresa May's pledge to put another £2 billion into affordable housing over the next four and a half years will produce just 25,000 more homes, or just over 5,000 a year.
Furthermore there is no intention to relax borrowing controls so councils will not be able to use the money to seed-corn bigger developments. Compared to the demand and the growing crisis facing parts of England and Wales, the promise is wholly inadequate.
As the Daily Mirror points out the extra £2 billion is just one fifth of the £10 billion in loan guarantees being offered to the poorly designed English Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme for 135,000 people.
And as if to add to the disaster that is Tory housing policy, it transpires that some of the new homes will not be affordable, but will be available at intermediate rents, normally 80% of market rent. So it will not even be properly targeted at those most in need.
Once more we are being offered a sticking plaster when major surgery is required.
Furthermore there is no intention to relax borrowing controls so councils will not be able to use the money to seed-corn bigger developments. Compared to the demand and the growing crisis facing parts of England and Wales, the promise is wholly inadequate.
As the Daily Mirror points out the extra £2 billion is just one fifth of the £10 billion in loan guarantees being offered to the poorly designed English Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme for 135,000 people.
And as if to add to the disaster that is Tory housing policy, it transpires that some of the new homes will not be affordable, but will be available at intermediate rents, normally 80% of market rent. So it will not even be properly targeted at those most in need.
Once more we are being offered a sticking plaster when major surgery is required.
