Government Acknowledges Size Matters

The Government has published its proposals to review the housing standards in the hope that this will ‘free up the building industry, support growth and get high quality homes built’.  Over 100 standards currently available to local councils, such as Lifetime Homes, face abolition.  For the handful of housing standards that will be kept, councils will only be able to apply them after conducting ‘a rigorous viability and need assessment’.  While this will undoubtedly cut red tape, it’s likely to be seen as bad news by localists: if the proposals go ahead local communities, via their councils, will have far less scope to develop standards for the homes built in their locality.  The good news is that the Government is willing to consider a national space standard for all new homes. Read more on the Shelter blog.