What could the Summer Budget bring

Next week brings us the Summer Budget in unlikely to bring much for housing with the housing bill coming in due course. We already know this will extend the right to buy scheme and push for regeneration of brownfield sites. One item that would be good to see a change on is the promise the government gave to build 200,000 starter homes.

 

The target set by the government is to help achieve the “affordable” element of their target but with current house prices there is an argument that even at a 20% discount they would be anything but affordable for those who actually need housing.

 

The National Housing Federation suggests 245,000 homes a year need to be created with around 80,000 affordable. I think you could go a long way to helping this by devolving an element of releasing the land to create these opportunities to the local authorities.

 

Last month the Communities Secretary Greg Clark announced a target to release public land to create 150,000 new homes over the course of the parliament. The sites are yet to be identified though the Homes and Communities Agency has identified sites for 14,000 homes (just shy of 10%) already. This challenge is being place on central government but also local government using the 326 town halls in the country.

 

Where you would like to see this going is the release of brownfield sites for development and allow for redevelopment of some areas of inner city. A good starting point is to create a register for these brownfield sites that are suitable for housing development. In a portfolio held by government of in excess of £100bn of land and property assets it should be straightforward to identify 150,000 houses in 5 years.

 

Another big area at the moment is the investment in infrastructure which will ultimately lead to a conversion on creating a northern powerhouse.  There is a need to rebalance the economy with the country so dependent on London and the South East and a key route to aiding this is investment in infrastructure. The recent announcements that there were problems with the investment programme for Network Rail puts surely some doubt into HS3.  It won’t be a surprise if there are announcements for some early investigation work on HS3 but having lived in the region for a while we must not forget that it’s not all about rail – simple improvements to Trans-Pennine road routes, for example making use of tunnels already present, would aid connectivity.

 

From speaking to a number of individuals there is a strong belief that the best way would be to HS1 and HS3 are completed and then at some point HS2 is completed. The cost to benefit ratio for HS2 is still unclear and the timescale to me almost means it will be redundant before it commences.

 

So whatever the Summer Budgets I don’t think it will answer all our queries but rather raise more. In all the right places all the right talk is happening but actions speak louder than words.

 

Feel free to contact me 0113 288 2276 or lee.a.wilkinson@uk.pwc.com if you wish to discuss this blog or anything relevant to property and construction.

Enjoy the weekend

Lee