The Housing Forum’s Housing Solutions sets out the key ways that policymakers and the housing sector can work together to deliver on our ambition of a quality home for all. It asks:
- What are the best cost-free policy changes that could help?
- What are the best ways Government could spend money to help?
- What should the housing sector do better?
- How should we be planning for the long-term
The five “cost-free” solutions set out are:
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First time buyer support via an industry-funded model, to get the sector building
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Ensuring that listening to the voices of those who need housing is a mandated part of the planning process.
- Counting people not “units” when building new social homes, to encourage building family-sized homes.
- Both supporting and requiring planning authorities to deliver to speed up decisions
- Increasing the income limits for shared ownership – frozen for a decade – inline with inflation.
We also set out the best ways that Government could spend money to support new housing, which include:
- A time-limited market stimulus to get the market moving, such as a stamp duty holiday.
- Postponing the “Building Safety Levy” until October 2028 to allow the sector to recover housebuilding rates first.
- Low-cost borrowing for councils.
- Removing VAT from all types of retrofitting undertaken by social landlords.
Housing Solutions also sets out ways in which the housing sector should itself work together to increase supply and quality. In the long-term it recommends that Government set up a new Housing Delivery Unit for better coordination of the housing ecosystem, supporting the social housing sector with long-term and flexible funding streams.
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Read the full report for practical insights and analysis.
You can download it below.