The New Homes Bonus scheme was meant to be a reward to
councils that encouraged housebuilding. There was some Treasury funding at
first but the main method of funding was to ‘top slice’ normal council grants.
There was therefore always going to be a redistributive effect from some
councils and to others. Analysis in the Financial Times concludes that the NHB
‘has shifted cash from poor northern councils to rich areas in the south with
little evidence that it has boosted homebuilding.’ The FT quotes the National
Audit Office finding that there is ‘little evidence’ that the bonus has change
councils’ behaviour in terms of planning, contradicting ex Minister Mark
Prisk’s claim that it would bring about ‘at least 400,000 additional homes’.
According to the authors, NHB has cost £2.2 billion so far – which happens to
be 50% more than the annual affordable grant programme. For that money, to
justify itself the policy should be delivering major improvements in housing
approvals and delivery. It plainly isn’t. Read more on the Red Brick blog.
Sunak and Gove accused of caving in to lobbying in favour of landlords
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Opposition MPs criticise changes to renters’ reform bill, which cast doubt
on removal of no-fault evictions
Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove have been accuse...
18 hours ago
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