Forum Brief: Housing plan

Spending on houses and road and rail links for them will rise by £1.3 billion a year by 2008, deputy prime minister John Prescott announced following the spending review.

Government Response: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

John Prescott said: "We have a responsibility to build the homes people need or face the consequences of homelessness and social division.

"The Sustainable Communities Plan set out the step change needed to build successful, thriving communities. Since then we have turned plans into action; delivering more and better homes which people can afford; providing thousands of key workers with a place to live; and reversing years of decline that have blighted communities, especially in the North. 

"This generous spending review settlement will be a catalyst for continued progress, enabling us to create places where people want to live now and in the future.

"This keeps us on track to deliver an extra 200,000 homes in London and the South East by 2016, and allows us to respond to new proposals for sustainable growth where there is demand locally.

"We have a particular responsibility to provide housing to those least able to afford it. Our investment in social housing and homelessness prevention will mean 11,000 fewer families with children will be in temporary accommodation.

"But we must avoid the mistakes of the past, delivering not just housing, but the infrastructure communities need. That’ s why in responding to the Barker Review, Alistair Darling and I are announcing a new Community Infrastructure Fund to support development of new sustainable communities in the four growth areas."

Forum Response: British Property Federation

Ian Fletcher, BPF director, said: "This is a step in the right direction in implementing the Barker Review and we are pleased to see funding being made available for infrastructure and housing.

"Whilst each has received real funding increases, that needs to be weighed against years of under investment in both.

"Government spending should focus more on prevention rather than cure, and we would therefore like to see housing on the same level of prioritisation as education and health, because poor housing ultimately contributes to education and health problems."

Forum Response: Construction Products Association

Allan Wilén, economics director at the Construction Products Association, said:  "The Association is pleased to see that in his latest spending review the chancellor has recognised that the government must divert more funding towards addressing housing problems in the UK.

 

"An additional 10,000 social homes being built per year by 2008 will however mean that new provision still falls substantially short of the increase recommended in Kate Barker’s recent report.

 

"She estimated that at least 17,000 additional homes are required each year to keep up with demographic trends and that this would raise to 23,000 additional properties per annum if the government were to address the backlog of decades of underinvestment.

 

"As Kate Barker points out in her report, the consequences of not facing up this challenge are increasing problems of homelessness, affordability and social division.

 

"This spending review is a useful first step but much more will need to be done."

 

Forum Response: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

 

Lord Best, director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: "We were hoping for good news in the spending review concerning the need to increase the supply of affordable housing within sustainable communities and we believe that the chancellor has taken another step in the right direction.

 

"However, an extra 10,000 homes by 2007/08 probably only goes half way towards closing the annual gap in supply set out by Kate Barker in her recent review of future housing demand for the Treasury.

 

"More surprising, was the pleasing prominence that the spending review gave to neighbourhood renewal in deprived areas, not only by enhancing the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, but also through a huge boost for Market Renewal Pathfinders to regenerate areas of the North and Midlands where housing demand is low.

 

"The National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal has come of age with these substantial new commitments."

 

Forum Response: Shelter

 

Adam Sampson, director of housing charity Shelter, said: "There is much in [the] announcement by the deputy prime minister to welcome. 

 

"Not only is the government finally starting to reverse the years of underinvestment in housing; not only is there a new acceptance that  priority should be given to those most in need, particularly homeless families with children is long overdue; but the decision to set a target for the total number of new social homes to be built gives a clear signal of their intent to deliver.

 

"But we should not get carried away.  For all the good intentions, these plans will only deliver half of the new social housing the government's own report, the Barker report, identified as needed each year to meet
arising demand.

 

"Far from ending the housing crisis, the new investment will only slow the rate at which that crisis deepens.

 

"The government's statement that their investment will mean 11,000 fewer homeless families with children suffering in temporary accommodation than would otherwise be the case sets out a clear signal of intent.

 

"But the fact that there are already more than one million children growing up in bad housing in Britain today shows how much more there is to be done."