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Will the government ‘build the homes the country needs’?

Housing Minister Gavin Barwell tweeted yesterday “housebuilding now at highest level for a generation. Real progress but more to do.” Hang on – Barwell’s not the housing minister – he was thrown out by his electorate in Croydon.

Barwell is now the PM’s chief of staff, and he was commenting on figures released this week showing that 220,000 homes have been built in the last year. His closeness to the PM, together with the recent barrage of lobbying from Javid over housebuilding plans, is one of the reasons why Mrs May has emphasised her commitment to ‘build the homes the country needs’ and take ‘personal charge’ of the Government’s response.

With the baby-boomers in charge of the property-owning democracy, and millennials looking on enviously, Sajid Javid has called for a ‘giant leap’ in number of new homes built, and that we ‘have to think big’ to tackle the crisis.  Through the White Paper, Sajid has already vowed to shake up the planning system, encourage diversity and increase supply, but little real progress seems to have been made.

Next week’s budget will have already been written – the office of budget responsibility’s need to see it early demands that.  The budget will, according to briefing, focus on housing and planning, and the chancellor hasn’t always restricted himself to fiscal measures in his pronouncements, so what could be in store?

A month ago, Javid called on the chancellor to borrow around £50billion to massively increase the supply of housing, using ‘record low’ interest rates to fund building up to 300,000 houses per year. The Conservatives have a natural reticence to use Keynesian economic methods, and these plans have already been attacked by Philip Hammond and others, but this would be a radical game-changer that might live up to the hype of the early budget briefing.

The chancellor has been looking at freeing up green belt land for the past few months, but this would upset the Conservatives’ support base in the Home Counties.  Releasing green belt land would help to free up more space for housing, increase the housing supply, and would help to bring down housing costs for first-time buyers. It would also allow developers to build high-density low-rise homes in the outer London boroughs like Croydon and Barnet.

Phillip Hammond’s known choice is to remove, or significantly lessen, the stamp duty burden on first-time buyers and some older home owners. This doesn’t go nearly far enough for most of those in the property industry, who believe the significant rise in stamp duty over the past few years is the reason for the fall in the market in central London, the decrease in moves across the market, and is one of the most pernicious taxes.  The Adam Smith Institute has said that this is one of the most damaging taxes that the UK has, arguing that the money to cut stamp duty should come from raising council tax on higher value properties.

At the Conservative Party’s annual conference in October there was an announcement that £2 billion would be invested in affordable housing for a new generation of council houses. The money that has already been promised could be expanded in the coming budget.  This was on top of £10 billion for expanding the ‘help to buy’ project.

There have been calls for PD rights to be expanded.  Despite a near unanimous disapproval from councils in the south east who believe PD rights meant that shoddy offices were just converted to shoddy homes, the government appears to want to expand these rights to allow greater height in schemes.  Under the plans, developers could add more residential floors onto their built-out schemes; up to the same height as neighbouring buildings or the tallest trees, without needing planning permission. Former Architecture and Heritage Minister, John Penrose MP, is running a campaign called ‘Build Up Not Out’ to lobby for this.

We have only a few days to find out what Hammond has in store.  If he fails, Michael Gove has been positioning himself to take over the post.

With thanks to Mark Findell.

Reader Interactions

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What people say about us…

Smooth operation

Many thanks for last night: a very smooth operation!

Message was very welcome

Was a great result – especially to receive unanimous approval! Many thanks also for you and your team’s work in the run up to the committee. Getting those messages across really helped and was evident by the feedback given by members on both sides of the political spectrum … notably on the successfully engagement with residents and how the scheme responded accordingly. Message was very welcome!

On point

Harry was on point and has been the whole way through. We are all very chuffed. We are already preparing for another rather testing application on another site and you can be certain that we will engage you

Appreciated

Thanks Richard, your help has been much appreciated. Will let you know when the next job comes up!

Big guns!

Thanks for your and the team’s help. It was good to know we had the proverbial big guns in our armoury!

You kept calm

Many thanks for that: your team did very well, and kept a lot calmer than me! Matt was a sensible wise head, as was Alex, but he also made me think succinctly for the questions and how to answer, which is a great skill to try and acquire. Especially for someone as verbose as me!

A unanimous approval

Councillors praised both officers and the developer on their work and engagement.

A unanimous approval 5-0

With your help

Really pleased to hear the news this evening

With your help, we got it through !!!!

Best Regards!

Truly excellent example

Great news that we approved 60 houses on green belt last night.

It was tremendous that the Chair said that this was a “truly excellent example of good consultation…”

Gave me more confidence

Thank you – we were both somewhat surprised given the level of objections but in fact the committee hardly discussed the scheme at all before consenting it.

Thanks to your team for preparing me well for the committee which certainly gave me more confidence.

A big relief

Thank you. A big relief. As I am sure you can appreciate, we are delighted!

Your team did a great job, especially Matt who was integral.

I look forward to catching up soon.

Unanimous

196 flats approved unanimously, thanks to all involved.

Professional and effective

I wanted to thank you and all at Thorncliffe for managing the consultation process so professionally and effectively. This, without doubt, played a crucial role in gaining the approval.

Once again, all our thanks.

Was a good result

Cant remember the last time I got anything through unanimously!

Was a good result, it’s the right scheme for the site and of course we had a great team including yourselves working on it,

First class troops

Richard. Your troops did a first class job as always. Many thanks

Praise for communityUK

Well done for the way you presented tonight’s online consultation. I thought it was an excellent format.

Great result last night

I just wanted to say thank you again for all your help with the great result last night.

You have been tremendous and it is much appreciated.

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