Building Britain's Future

£1,500,000,000 buys 20,000 new homes over two years assuming inflated land prices are not to be paid. That will just about cover the cost of construction assuming budgets of between £800 and £1,200 a square metre. But that is the building of only 10,000 homes a year.

That is pathetic when even in 2007 Britain only built 200,000 homes, while household growth was 240,000 a year, and 260,000 replacement homes were required to replace the existing stock at a rate of 1%. We should be building 500,000 homes, but last year barely managed 100,000. Another 10,000 "eco-homes" will do nothing to make the stock of 26 million homes affordable. It will do little to get housebuilding back to anything that could be called "volume", with materials manufacturers, site operatives, and professionals facing a permanent decline in the volume of housing production. Only planners, paid to say "no", are kept in work by Brown.

Brown's maths are a disgrace

Last year the government announced that it was bringing £400,000 'forward' in the 2008-2011 current spending round to build new 'affordable homes. Now it is announcing an 'additional £1.5bn... over the next 2 years... to build an additional 20,000 new affordable homes' and an 'extra £1.2bn this year on housing'.
In practice this is meaningless, because under planning rules, most 'affordable'/social housing is provided as part of mixed developments under Section 106 agreements. Without suficient private developments it simply isn't possible to deliver the government's target for 'affordable' housing.
Furthermore, in 2007 before the 'credit crunch' really decimated new home building, around 22,000 new 'affordable' homes (a high proportion of which were flats) were built. So 10,000 additional new homes a year represents a 50% increase in construction of new 'affordable' homes. There are neither the infrastructure, nor the planning consents in place to deliver this in the first year.

I thought the stamp duty holiday had something to do with houses being so expensive that nobody could afford them, even though the economy has nosedived! MPs, with all those expensive second homes paid for by the second homes allowance, should probably have noticed how this nation's wealth was built on a housing bubble, and how that bubble has now burst. Instead of the boom-bust policies of Gordon 'I stopped boom-bust' Brown, we need real housing policies that aim to build houses that all people can afford, not houses for a tiny few deemed worthy by bureaucrats and politicians.

We need real change, not the same old policies in disguise. That is why I am supporting the Pirate Party - the new international movement.

I welcome this additional investment in new affordable homes. These are needed when you look at the number of people and families seeking to rent social housing throughout the country. Meeting housing need should be at the core of a decent and just society.
In addition, addressing the years of funding inequalities for council housing departments and allowing local housing resources to support investment in local council homes is also very welcome. Let's hopw both these initiatives deliver the desired outcomes.

i really want an affordable house to rent , the cost of renting privately is just too expensive - what is the govt doing about this . can u pls control the market especially in london