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8 radical ideas for house-building

How to kick-start house building and fight the housing crisis. By Phil Shelton, CEO, SDS, the Housing Experts

Now that David Cameron is back in No. 10, we hope he’ll take fresh action to solve the huge housing crisis we’re facing. Over the last 5 years politicians have been less concerned about the appalling deficit in roofs over heads than the budget deficit. So, Phil Shelton, CEO of housing experts, SDS, offers an 8 Point Plan to get housing moving at last: 1. Kick start house building with tax incentives as in the film industry

Why not boost the house building programme with tax incentives? We have a far greater human need of housing than home-grown Hollywood movies and stars. These incentives will encourage construction and help simplify and speed up the process of planning permission for sites.

The film industry for years has enjoyed tax incentives which are worth £5m tax relief on £20m budgets and £5m on the first £20m for bigger budget movies. And the government is planning to improve this package.

2. Commit government funds to increase infrastructure spending

Commit government funds to increase infrastructure spending and a spike in capital grants for housing, which would accelerate the stuttering building programme. David Cameron has pledged 275,000 affordable homes, 95,000 units through new housing zones and 200,000 starter homes in the next 5 years. Total: 570,000. But we need 250,000 new homes a year – or 1,250, 000 by 2020. So there’s still a significant shortfall.

3. Light-touch regs and clear time-tables

Introduce clear time-tables and light-touch regulation to make it easy for RPs and LAs to bid for the grants. Sadly, the time-table, as we see above, falls way short of what we need to solve the housing crisis, and the government is still just nibbling round the edges.

4. Scrap the £50.1bn HS2 and divert the funds to a high-speed housing programme

Think the unthinkable or obvious, whichever way you see it, and scrap immediately the HS2 folly, which, according to latest government figures, will cost £50.1bn. Replace this vanity project which is totally speculative, and re-direct at least some of the millions into public housing projects. Double whammy: roofs over heads, and a huge boost to the construction and allied industries.

The huge white elephant minus the final stretch to Glasgow, which the SNP will probably now have to fund, will release a few billion of the total £50bn cost of whole project. Use those savings for new housing.

5. Throw out the bedroom tax

Forget the bedroom tax and focus on identifying the types of homes actually needed in a specific area. Micro planning should oust social engineering and a mean tax. In other words, the £470 million expected to accrue from the Bedroom Tax will help, but is not huge in terms of the task at hand.

6. Provide clarity and certainty on the future of housing

This has been woefully lacking and a new clarity would be a welcome change. As we see above, so far we have 570,000 new houses to be built by 2020. Where’s the clarity in how that will happen? It’s elementary maths, and what certainty does that give the 5 million people on the waiting list for housing?

7. Encourage LAs to build council houses

But be sure to seek expert advice from industry veterans, who know the pitfalls. The LA and Private Sector initiatives where LAs set up separate companies to build houses, is the right route to take. Already we have successful examples. Think Manchester City Council’s partnership with the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.

8. Embrace overseas partnerships

Finally, embrace overseas partnerships and investment like the partnership between Sydney & London Properties and the USA’s highly experienced and cash-rich Related Companies, which developed the successful Hudson Yards project in New York.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Nathanson .