Government report places doubt on affordable homes

The government is set to announce a new wave of publicly funded housebuilding in an attempt to boost the market and help in the current shortage of homes.

A government-commissioned report will call for the present quota of affordable homes in new housing developments to be waived which would enable developers to have more properties available for let to provide a boost to the private rental market. The report, conducted by Sir Adrian Montague, chairman of private equity firm 3i, will also call for a task force to be set up to encourage build-to-let investment and for unused publicly-owned land to be released for development.

It is the lack of commitment to affordable housing which will attract most controversy in the new report and the Labour party, along with industry groups, councils and charities, has already spoken out against the report’s recommendations.

Both the National Housing Federation and the charity Shelter have welcomed the commitment to provide more private market rented housing but have said this should not come at the expense of affordable homes for people struggling to get themselves onto the property ladder.

The shadow housing minister, Jack Dromey, said that many families are already paying the price of the coalition government’s failure to build enough affordable homes, adding: “The government should be acting to address this problem, not looking for ways to water down existing legislation which could make the problem worse.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/aug/23/ministers-house-building