I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement of a major boost to make home ownership more affordable, ensuring that affordable housing includes low cost homes to buy as well as low cost homes to rent, so that young people are not locked into renting when what they really want is a home of their own.
For years, politicians have talked about building what they call ‘affordable homes’ but this phrase was somewhat misleading. It basically means homes that were only available to rent rather than to buy. Developers were told that you can build, but only if you build affordable homes for rent. The Conservative Government are replacing this with new rules which will enable those affordable homes to also be low costs homes to buy - helping ‘Generation Rent’ move to become ‘Generation Buy’.
Current planning rules prevent Starter Homes as counting as affordable housing. These homes give first time buyers at least a 20 per cent discount on a new build home. Such homes are a key way for many younger people to be able to buy their first home, as part of a sensible mix of affordable housing.
What we have seen in recent years is that holding out for unrealistic types of ‘affordable’ housing hinders house building. While I am always keen that house builders support affordable housing to rent, we have seen that holding out for an unrealistic level of affordable homes to rent has stopped homes from being built in the first place. This has prevented house builders from meeting the untapped market demand of low cost homes to buy, of which there is huge demand if such new homes are available. By introducing this flexibility, we will see more homes being built and as a result, more affordable housing provided than would otherwise be the case.
Labour will no doubt put out their usual negative spin and seek to portray us as being against affordable homes to rent, but the reality is that nationally, twice as many council homes were built between 2011 and 2015 than in 13 years of Labour Government.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
21st October 2015