12 THE INDUSTRY ADVOCATE
Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders
WHERE WAS HOUSING DURING THE ELECTION?
Brian Berry of the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) highlights the lack of focus on housing during the recent election campaigns, and explores what the new Government can do to aid the sector going forward.
A
fter 25 days of door knocking, battle buses, leadership debates, pledges, blunders, photo opportunities and press conferences, the first winter general election campaign since 1923 has come to an end. Amongst all this noise, there was one policy area that was notably lacking in prominence – housing. While there were a few announce- ments made by each of the parties, construction certainly was not a major theme of this election.
Why this was the case is up for debate, but in some ways, it is irrelevant now. All eyes are now on what the new Government will do next, and they cannot turn a blind eye to the housing crisis. There is an opportunity for this Government to introduce new, bold and imagi- native policies to ensure we are building the homes we urgently need. The FMB published a ‘Programme for Government’, on some of the ideas we think should be taken forward.
THIS GOVERNMENT HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEAVE A LONG- LASTING LEGACY BY HELPING TO SOLVE THE HOUSING CRISIS
WWW.HBDONLINE.CO.UK
Here is snapshot of some of the ideas within the document:
COMMIT TO BUILDING 1.5M NEW HOMES OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS
The new Government needs to commit to housebuilding as a national infrastructure priority. Last year saw 241,130 new homes in England, but this is still almost 60,000 short of the 300,000 target. We want to see a commit- ment from this Government to maintain this target for each of the years it is in power over the next Parliament, and therefore enable the building of 1.5 million homes of all tenures. This may seem ambitious, but it will only be by aiming high that we will come close to solving the housing crisis.
ALLOCATE SMALL PLOTS OF PUBLIC LAND TO HELP SME HOUSEBUILDERS
Central to delivering these numbers of new
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