31 March 2006
Ministers are to explore new ways of extending home ownership by encouraging first-time buyers to purchase part of the equity in their home.
A task force led by housing minister Yvette Cooper and Treasury minister John Healey will study the long-term potential of further shared equity schemes in partnership with private lenders.
The task force was announced on March 28 following the announcement of £970m for shared equity schemes in Gordon Brown's Budget on March 22, aimed at delivering 35,000 new low-cost properties for sale.
From April, different HomeBuy schemes will be aimed at social housing tenants as well as key workers and other priority groups, who wish to buy either new homes or those already on the open market.
A total of 35,000 of the 84,000 homes being built through the Housing Corporation's National Affordable Housing Programme in 2006/07 and 2007/08 are for sale rather than for renting by registered social landlords.
John Perry, policy adviser to the Chartered Institute of Housing, said this meant fewer homes were being built for rent than in the late 1990s, when about 30,000 were built annually. 'The government has a lot of ground to make up,' he said.
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister also announced plans to build 10,000 homes on a former Ministry of Defence site in Cambridgeshire. It will be the first development on surplus public sector land to use high eco-standards.
PFmar2006
