New Homes Bonus Not Fit For Purpose

The latest planning application figures published by CLG give little comfort to the view that we are seeing a resurgent housebuilding sector emerging on the back of the New Homes Bonus and generous government support to the housebuilding industry. It is of course hard to disentangle the NHB impact given the data is not readily available and it sits at odds with the more traditional housing starts and completions data sets.  The Hansard record of the debates point up the fact that the NHB output includes empty homes coming back into use  and a large number of new one bedroom flats which seem either to be conversions of existing larger  and possibly multi-occupied homes plus new student residences.  Either way the evidence regarding the incentive effects of NHB are very poor to date raising the question about whether it is fit for purpose as a central plank of housing supply policy. Read more of this blog post on the Red Brick blog.