By Nick Mann | 21 November 2011
Plans to free more public land for developments and to encourage private investment in new home building are expected to feature in a government housing strategy set to be published today.
At a briefing on the document last week, the interim chief executive of the Chartered Institute for Housing, Grainia Long, said her expectation was that the strategy would be built around three strands – ‘affordability, quantity and stability’.
In particular, she hoped the document would address the ‘real opportunity’ around using public land for housing. But she added: ‘There’s a question around how it will work and how you release land – we expect to see comment on how we bring forward the sale of public land and how it would work.’
Steve Partridge, director of financial policy and development at the CIH, said the institute also expected the strategy to talk about how the government planned to attract private money for building new homes.
‘I think there’s an appetite to invest from the market and to put money into investment – housing associations are having no difficulty raising bonds.’
According to the CIH, the strategy will set out plans to bring forward 160,000 new homes a year – still short of the 250,000 needed to meet current demand.
Partridge said that while attracting private sector money could add a new way of building new homes to contribute to this goal, it was ‘difficult to tell’ whether it would add up to a ‘dramatic increase’ in housing stock.
The CIH acknowledged there was a ‘risk’ that the strategy would not include any major new policy announcements, but just bring together statements already made on areas such as Rightto Buy. But it added that it was hopeful it would still show a ‘major shift’ in policies.
Long said: ‘I hope there is something new in there. I think there is a risk we end up with a strategy that’s a strong articulation of what’s already been announced. What would be new is if this strategy pulled all this together and gave us a very clear idea of how it fits together.’
In particular, she hoped the strategy would place housing ‘at the centre’ of plans for economic growth.
‘Housing needs to be a plank of infrastructure in the UK. If we’re to be an export-led economy we need the right homes in the right places,’ she said.
