Grant Shapps has insisted plans to incentivise councils to build homes will work. Professor Alan Evans, director of spatial and real estate economics at the University of Reading, said the new homes bonus scheme, which provides funding to match the first six years of council tax for new homes built, would be too costly. ‘I did a rough calculation and the cost, even assuming fairly low rates of small houses being built, would be around £1 billion a year,’ he said. Mr Shapps said a separate plan, to allow councils to keep the business rates from increased business activity in their area for six years, would help make the scheme affordable by adding to the incentive to build. He said: The [planning] system at the moment is entirely top down, it relies on some quango saying “look I’m going to regenerate your area, and I’m going to do it by taking this particular measure”. And we think actually if you are the local authority you should be able to make those choices.’ The National Housing Federation published research yesterday suggesting the coalition government’s approach to planning has so far resulted in councils scrapping plans for 160,000 homes. Read the full story on Inside Housing.
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