Well, Autumn has arrived and the dark drizzle of evenings that will lead us into Winter no matter how hard we fight. Housing is something we should fight hard to get right – it’s an essential part of our lives.
A policy to build 100,000 council homes each year, well what would you expect from Jeremy Corbyn! I have to applaud him for doing something he believes in irrespective of the reaction from the market, because let’s be honest – developers aren’t going to be happy. The strapline behind this focus, which has continued since the general election 2015 is simply “a decent home for everybody” and in truth why should this not be the focus of all. We all want somewhere to call home, rather than the age old saying “It’ll do until we get somewhere better”.
The whole housing topic, unfortunately for the Government, is an easy target. The last set of promises were not delivered upon and very few believe the policies set forth by Brandon Lewis are achievable either but I don’t think this is about winning points – it is about doing the right thing, creating a community that benefits all of society. The best part to me of his speech was simply “Private rents out of control; a third of private rented homes not meeting basic standards of health and safety; the chance of owning a home a distant dream for the vast majority of young people. There’s no answer to this crisis that doesn’t start with a new council housebuilding programme”. I sort of lean towards parts of this view, I do think there should be a push on the public sector housebuilding as it will create homes in the right sector of the market but it’s not the only option.
So what else is on the agenda of the Labour party. John Healey, shadow housing minister, announced a “review” by Taylor Wimpey Chief Executive Peter Redfern. He has experience and is respected in the business but I don’t envy his challenge – determining and analysing the root causes of the housing crisis. Is it not supply and demand? Maybe that’s why I wasn’t asked to do the review. The report is due next year and comes a year after the Lyons Housing Review, which has largely been ignored. Wonder how much money went into publishing it?
Now it gets a bit sketchy when you say building 100,000 homes a year can make money for the Government but in all truth, why not if delivered properly? The discussion paper tabled by John Healey outlined that in 26 years building 100,000 affordable public homes to rent or buy a year will by lowering housing benefit payments. Could we not review the housing benefit payments rather than building the houses as well? I know they’re interlinked but surely that review should already be underway to save money.
Healey also published a discussion paper, in partnership with the left-wing think tank the Smith Institute, which claimed a programme of building 100,000 affordable public homes to rent and buy a year could pay for itself in 26 years through lower housing benefit payments, returning a profit to the Exchequer of £5.8bn over 30 years. Let’s take it a step further and boost council housebuilding by letting them borrow against their assets and push further developers on certain sized schemes for more social homes through the planning system.
Maybe between all parties they should sit down and talk and agree a bit of each side - they are all moving the right way and have valid arguments but maybe converging all the plans to create a plausible solution to benefit all (not just certain people).
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
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