Interesting times ahead according to the Autumn budget 2017 with regards to housing, also green belt and brownfield sites – an area that Alps Group specialises in and has much experience of.
Some main points:
The housing supply is to be raised from 217,000 at present to approximately 300,000 per year by the mid 2020s supported by
- New planning reforms to ensure more land is made available in the “right” areas with the onus being on underused areas in towns and cities and will support measures to convert
commercial land and developments into housing. - Financial support
• The abolition of stamp duty for first time buyers purchasing a property under £300,000 helping approximately 80% of new home owners get onto the property ladder.
• £15.3 billion split between:
• SME loans to build new homes
• Infrastructure and remediation to speed up the building on small or stalled sites
• Council borrowing for new council houses
• Estate regeneration
• Land assembly fund – collation of land in ready to go development sites
• Financial guarantees to support private sector house building. - Further financial support for help to buy equity schemes, affordable housing and a pilot for right to buy schemes for housing association tenants.
• Absolute support for protection of the Green Belt policy, which means greater emphasis on brown field sites – Alps’ speciality area.
Government will also bring together both public and private investment to plan and build 5 new garden towns.
The Budget also announced:
• Deallocation of land in local plans where there is no prospect of a planning application being made
• Local authorities are to grant permission for development of land outside their existing plan if the homes are offered for a reduced rate for sale or rent
• Tougher consequences where planned homes are not built by strengthening the housing delivery test.
• A requirement for 20% of local authority housing supply to be brought forward as ‘faster-building’ small housing sites.
Peter Alcock CEO of ALPS adds “This is very positive news for our industrial clients who have surplus brown field sites which need to be regenerated and brought back into economic use, with further much needed planning reforms promised”.