It is estimated that England in particular needs over 200,000 new houses a year and the current government has introduced a number of new measures aimed at boosting home building. But at this week’s Labour Party conference, Shadow Housing Minister Jack Dromey MP said the party would do more if it is elected at the next general elections which is due to take place in 2015.
Speaking at a fringe event, Dromey also promised to ‘cut through the crap’ around land availability and in his leader’s speech Ed Miliband said a Labour government would create new garden cities as part of the solution to the lack of housing.
Garden cities first became popular in the UK in 1898 when Sir Ebenezer Howard created the idea of building self contained communities surrounded by green belt land containing homes, industry and agriculture. He organised the Garden City Association in 1899 and two garden cities, Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City were built using his ideas.
The concept was adopted again in England after World War II, when the New Towns Act paved the way for the development of many new communities based on Howard's ideas.
Julia Evans, chief executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said they key to improving the housing market is smaller developments and smaller, local builders are ideally placed to provide what is wanted. ‘We need to free up house builders to build in the way we are freeing up house buyers to buy. Not all local communities are against new developments for future generations, but they would prefer smaller, more personal clusters that SMEs are best placed to provide, rather than huge developments. We let smaller house builders leave the industry at our peril,’ she said.
Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), agreed that it is smaller settlements across villages, towns and cities that are needed to tackle the housing crisis and it is SMEs that are needed to deliver this.
‘Without the involvement of more SME house builders there will not be enough capacity in the sector to deliver all of the new homes that are so badly needed. The problems with access to finance have not gone away for SME house builders, which is why we would like to see the Labour Party include a new finance vehicle to help house builders in their housing policy package,’ he added.
Housing and planning charity, the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) welcomed the plans for new garden cities. ‘A new generation of Garden Cities is long overdue. The TCPA has been running a re-invigorated Garden City campaign for the last two years, making the case for how large scale housing development can be highly successful, such as in Welwyn and Letchworth Garden Cities,’ said Kate Henderson, TCPA chief executive.
‘Many of the Garden City ideals remain of critical relevance today, providing a foundation and an economy of scale for high quality, attractive and inclusive places, creating new jobs and truly sustainable lifestyles. The Garden Cities were fired by a sense of idealism and enthusiasm, with numerous voluntary organisations. Today, we can go further, placing local people at the heart of the process from the outset in order to shape our new communities and put in place long term community governance models,’ she explained.
The TCPA has recently published the first research of its kind to analyse the Census 2011 and latest population data to project the level of housing demand and need over the next 20 years. The study, carried out by housing academic Alan Holmans at Cambridge University, set out the need for over 240,000 homes per year, while current house building levels are around only 110,000 per year.
‘We urgently need a new vision for housing and the development of new communities. That new vision has to ensure a substantial increase in the supply of new homes and address affordability. At the same time, we must focus on building successful new communities, whether as part of urban regeneration or through new Garden Cities. This is essential not just to our economic future but also the social and environmental wellbeing of our country,’ added Henderson.
But not all housing policies put forward by the Labour Party this week have been welcomed. Richard Lambert, chief executive officer of the National Landlords Association (NLA), said that plans to register all landlords in England lack substance. ‘Landlord registration has been mooted several times in recent years. However, no proponent of a statutory register has clearly identified the objectives which registration will achieve,’ he explained.
‘Almost one in five households in the UK lives in a privately rented home. Given this dramatic increase in responsibility which now rests with private landlords it is inevitable that more questions will be asked of their professionalism. However, the NLA believes that these discussions must also ask supporters of landlord registration to consider their answers to some important questions,’ he continued.
He pointed out that the register of Scottish landlords has only achieved 75% compliance six years since its launch and a key question is what a register could achieve that can’t be achieved with existing enforcement powers.
Another important issue is what befit registration would bring to the responsible, law abiding landlord and how a future Labour government would ensure that the cost of registration to landlords would not end up increasing the cost of living for tenants.
Also Miliband’s proposal to allow local authorities to take back land from house builders has not been so well received. It would fail and would not deliver any new homes, according to property and planning law firm Winckworth Sherwood.
'Successive governments have tried and failed to force the public sector to release land for housing. Forcibly taking land off housebuilders into the public sector will undoubtedly face legal challenges. Miliband would be far better focusing his attention on making local authorities and other public sector organisations release land they hold for new homes as government has more direct control over them. He could start by making sure central government departments are first in line,' said Karen Cooksley, a partner and planning law expert at Winckworth Sherwood
'Home ownership is also not the only solution to solving our housing need. There is a real need to increase the size of the private rented sector in the UK on an enormous scale as not everyone wants or can afford to own a home. There is an appetite from new and institutional investors. These proposals are largely a repetition of existing Coalition Government policy. It is time for genuinely new thinking if inroads are to be made into our rising housing need,' she added.
Jonathan Hopper, managing director of property finders Garrington said that Miliband's suggestion to allow councils to buy land opens up a whole can of worms. 'Why would councils have the right to do this when it is often their own over onerous planning gain agreements that our holding up development? Clearly their right to buy back will have to exclude all such schemes or we will be looking at a lawyers' charter. Is this the start of a new agenda for nationalisation? This would be spectacularly unhelpful for our housing crisis,' he commented.
