Thursday, November 16, 2017
Do the Tories understand what needs to be done to tackle the housing crisis?
We will have to wait for the budget of course, before we can fully evaluate whether Theresa May's promise to personally solve the UK's housing crisis is going to deliver, but proposals hinted at in this article appear to me to fall well short of what is needed.
The Independent say that the chief measure will be the Chancellor will free up housing associations to borrow millions of pounds more for housebuilding. He will do that by taking housing associations’ debt off the balance sheet, with the goal being that they have a stable investment environment to build more homes.
In fact that move is being forced on him by an Audit Office ruling that housing associations count as public sector bodies and that their borrowing counts against the public debt targets. The Welsh Government are already taking a bill through the Assembly for the same reason.
Unless the budget allocates substantial sums of money to help fund a massive increase in the building of social and affordable housing, puts into place arrangements to help small builders overcome red tape and access finance, and simplifies planning rules then it is unlikely that the Prime Minister's crusade will the impact she hopes.
Do the Tories really understand what is needed to start tackling the UK's housing crisis. The devil is in the detail.
The Independent say that the chief measure will be the Chancellor will free up housing associations to borrow millions of pounds more for housebuilding. He will do that by taking housing associations’ debt off the balance sheet, with the goal being that they have a stable investment environment to build more homes.
In fact that move is being forced on him by an Audit Office ruling that housing associations count as public sector bodies and that their borrowing counts against the public debt targets. The Welsh Government are already taking a bill through the Assembly for the same reason.
Unless the budget allocates substantial sums of money to help fund a massive increase in the building of social and affordable housing, puts into place arrangements to help small builders overcome red tape and access finance, and simplifies planning rules then it is unlikely that the Prime Minister's crusade will the impact she hopes.
Do the Tories really understand what is needed to start tackling the UK's housing crisis. The devil is in the detail.
