Government housing action plan coming this week

The government says it will publish an action plan this week to explain how it is going to implement some of its so-far broad brush policies to solve the country’s housing shortage.

In an announcement over the weekend the Department of Communities and Local Government pledged the action plan “early” this week - presumably ahead of the Budget, to be unveiled by Chancellor George Osborne on Wednesday lunchtime. 

The DCLG has restated the main intentions of the government, namely:

Help To Buy - to be extended until 2020;

Starter Homes - 200,000 to be built over the next five years, exclusively for first time buyers under 40 and sold with a 20 per cent discount on open market values. Some 58,000 people have already signed up for this; 

Right To Buy - to be extended to housing association tenants with a discount of up to 70 per cent; 

Self-Build - doubling the number of custom built and self-built homes by 2020 by placing a new duty on councils to help allocate land to people who want to build their own home;

Public Sector Land - a pledge to bring forward enough public sector land for 150,000 homes over the next five years;

‘Unlocking Land’ - the government says there is enough brownfield land available for 400,000 homes so can as it can unlock sites. There is an existing commitment to ensure planning permission is in place on 90 per cent of suitable brownfield sites by 2020;

Further unspecified planning reform - “we will also take action on councils that have failed to produce a plan for the homes their community needs - ensuring plans are written for those areas” says a DCLG statement.