A roadmap to 1.5 million homes: What does the Government need to do and when?
The Housing Forum has been developing a roadmap (due for publication in a few weeks) that sets out what is needed to achieve 1.5 million new homes over the course of the next five years. It draws on the expertise of The Housing Forum’s members and board, who represent all part of the housing and construction sector.
We have this week submitted our recommendations for Year 1 with funding implications to the Chancellor in advance of the Autumn Statement. These include:
- Creation of a £4bn Housing Accelerator Fund to tackle the affordable housing backlog and help retain capacity in the housebuilding sector.
- Better resourcing the planning system
- Incentivising building on brownfield sites, with flexible and long-term funding where required to make this viable
- Grant funding to ensure that housing associations have the capacity to perform their dual role of landlords of existing homes, including building safety upgrades and providers of new homes
- The removal of VAT from all forms of retrofitting, regeneration and fire safety work.
- Ensuring long-term visibility of grant funding and of future income streams to help the sector plan with certainty, leveraging in additional funds from the private sector.
- Finding ways to increase local authorities’ borrowing capacity and reduce the cost of borrowing.
- Supporting households who aspire to home ownership but cannot afford to buy unaided. Targeting support at newbuild homes would help increase housing supply.
- Reinstating the Community Housing Fund as a feed-in to the Affordable Homes Programme for undercapitalised community organisations to support community-led development, self-build and custom-build.
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