Black Country Garden City To Get 45,000 New Homes

Plans to build more than 45,000 new homes in the Black Country have been unveiled. It is claimed The Black Country Garden City will be the biggest regeneration of brownfield sites in the country, spanning over 31 different areas. The design would see pockets of housing built across the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. Development will begin this year and is due to be completed by 2025. Read more on the BBC website.

'Stand Off' Could Stall Ebbsfleet Garden City

Fears are growing that the Chancellor's flagship housing project, the Ebbsfleet Garden City, could stall due to a lack of investment. The scheme, which is designed to address Britain's burgeoning housing shortage in the South East, needs more than £1bn in extra funding to become a reality. Peter Jones, the chairman for the South East Local Enterprise Partnership, said that the Government and European Union have obligated £900,000 to the project which will only take care of "the basic infrastructure." An additional £1.5bn is needed from the private sector to build the 15,000 homes promised and amenities, he continued. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Architect Peer Says Building on Greenbelt 'A Ridiculous Idea'

Lord Rogers of Riverside has attacked proposals to build up to 40 new garden cities on the greenbelt as "a ridiculous concept" and has called instead for the developments to be stitched into existing cities using derelict sites. It follows cross-party consensus that garden cities could solve the deepening housing crisis.  But the leading architect and Labour peer said he was saddened by the re-emergence of ideas to build several million new homes on green field sites and proposed instead to build major new developments in the Croydon and northern cities such as Manchester and Hull. Government projections suggest the UK needs six million new homes in the next 30 years. Read more on the Guardian website.

UK Needs To Build 300,000 New Homes a Year

Britain needs to build 300,000 houses a year, more than double the current number and including some on green belt land, or risk pushing house price inflation up to dangerous levels, the business secretary has said.  Vince Cable said difficult decisions needed to be made about building garden cities on green belt land, and that proposals to reduce demand by paring back government's Help to Buy scheme missed the bigger problem of a lack of supply. Cable has long warned about house price inflation, but his latest remarks are his most serious yet, and reflect frustration at the way in which David Cameron's reforms to planning laws have done little to unleash supply. Read more on the Guardian website.

No Affordable Housing in New Garden Cities Is Big Disappointment

The housing crisis is most acute for those trying to find decent homes on low incomes. Many people are locked out of the market and we are no longer building anything like enough social housing to meet demand. This is why the government's decision not to include affordable housing in its three new garden cities is so disappointing, and goes against the very purpose of garden cities. Garden cities were founded on the principle of providing high-quality homes in a healthy environment for those in most housing need. Unlike most modern housing, garden cities are aimed at encouraging mixed communities in homes which are genuinely affordable for everyone. This is partly about affordable homes for sale but, to make a real difference, the majority of homes in new garden cities would be available for social rent. Read more on the Guardian website.

New Garden Cities Not Required To Include Low-Cost Homes

A Tory planning minister has admitted that the coalition's new wave of garden cities would not have to contain a single affordable home, despite Nick Clegg's claims that they would offer low-cost accommodation and help solve the UK's housing crisis. Asked by Labour whether the first garden city in Ebbsfleet would contain low-cost homes, Nick Boles, a Conservative minister, said the government would "not impose a particular level of affordable housing for housing schemes". "Unrealistic Section 106 agreements [which specify how many affordable homes should be built] result in no development, no regeneration and no community benefits," he added. Read more on the Guardian website.

Clegg to Promise 45,000 Homes across Three Garden Cities

The government will pledge to build up to three new garden cities with at least 15,000 homes each. Councils will be invited to bid to build the developments from an existing £2.4bn government fund, made available up to 2020.  Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg will unveil the policy and publish a prospectus inviting bids from councils. Government officials said the developments would not be imposed on communities and must have local support, full backing from councils, good transport links and be commercially viable. The government plans to work with the two or three areas that submit the strongest expressions of interest to help them develop their proposals, including with planning and design. Read more on the Building website.

Government Failing Miserably In The Face Of Growing Housing Crisis

There are 1.7m households on council waiting lists, homelessness has grown by 68 per cent since 2009 and last year’s house building figures were the lowest since the Second World War and 45 per cent down on 2008 when the financial crisis hit. The chancellor’s Budget response was to announce a series of small loan funds aimed at pet projects – £525m development finance to encourage small and medium size builders, £150m to help self-builders and an inadequate loan pot for the private sector to become involved in inner city estate regeneration. Alongside this, the prime minister’s on-off romance with garden cities finally blossomed with one now planned for Kent, although when it will be built is debatable given the growing nimbyism in Tory ranks. The extension of the Help to Buy scheme for would-be home owners to 2020, at an estimated cost of £6bn is an ineffective means of increasing affordable housing supply but highly efficient at stimulating demand and inflating house prices. It worsens rather than tackles the underlying affordability problem in the UK’s housing market. Read more on the Left Foot Forward blog.

Budget 2014: The Key Points for Housing

·         New homes planned - New homes will be built in Barking and Brent Cross, while 15,000 will go up in a new garden city at Ebbsfleet. The government will be publishing a further prospectus on garden cities later in the year.

·         Reforms to planning - The Chancellor will extend the Help to Buy equity loan scheme for the rest of the decade, to get "120,000 new homes built".

·         New funds for home building - The government will provide £150m to help self-builders in a "right to build" scheme, and give £500m to small house building firms.

·         Stamp duty extended - The government is attempting to cut down on stamp duty tax avoided through company-owned homes by expanding its 15% rate from residential properties worth over £2m to those worth more than £500,000.

Access the full Budget statement together with supporting documents at the Gov UK website.

‘First Garden City for 100 Years'

George Osborne has announced the creation of what the government is describing as Britain's first garden city for almost 100 years, by the Thames Estuary at Ebbsfleet.  The chancellor said that initially 15,000 homes would be built on the site, which has been chosen partly because a high-speed rail connection puts it within 19 minutes of central London. Osborne also said he would use his budget on Wednesday to extend one of the government's two Help to Buy schemes. He will pledge £6bn to extend the equity loan scheme to 2020, funding the construction of a further 120,000 homes. Read more on the Guardian website.

New Towns – Parliamentary Written Answer

Emma Reynolds: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what work his Department has contributed to the drafting of a report or prospectus on garden cities since May 2010.  

Danny Alexander: Since May 2010, the Treasury has worked with DCLG on a range of policies to support housing supply, including the Government's Affordable Housing Programme, the Get Britain Building and Build to Rent schemes, and the locally-led large sites programme, which was extended at autumn statement 2013.

We WILL Build Two New Garden Cities, Says Pickles

Eric Pickles has confirmed that two 'garden cities' could be built in the south east in a bid to tackle Britain's housing crisis. The Communities Secretary insisted that they would not be forced on unwilling new communities, and said local councils had already come forward to express an interest. He insisted his department had not been responsible for drawing up a document, which was reported last week as proposing new settlements at Yalding in Kent and Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. Speaking on Sky News, he said no decisions had been made on location. Read more on the Daily Mail website.

Measures to Help Labour Reach 200,000 Homes a Year Target

Emma Reynolds has announced a package of proposed measures to help smaller house builders and custom build play a role in Labour’s promise to deliver 200,000 homes a year by 2020. In a speech to the National House Building Council, the shadow housing minister announced Build First - measures which she said will be implemented if Labour win the next election. The measures announced included:

·         A Labour government will require local authorities to include a higher proportion of small sites in their five year land supply.

·         It would give guaranteed access to public land to smaller firms and custom builders.

·         It will ensure that any public land given over for house building will have a proportion dedicated for this purpose.

·         A proportion of the homes built in new towns and garden cities will be built by smaller firms and custom builders.

·         It will increase transparency in the land market by ensuring that developers register the land they own or have options on.

Read more on Inside Housing.

Conservatives 'Suppressing Garden Cities Report'

The Conservatives have been accused of suppressing a report which recommends building two new garden cities to combat the housing shortage. Liberal Democrat president Tim Farron said his coalition partners feared alienating voters in southern England ahead of the general election. Mr Farron said he believed the report identified two potential sites - in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. The Conservatives denied any delay and said plans would be outlined for 2015. Read more on the BBC website.