publication date: Feb 25, 2011
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author/source: Kate Faulkner, Property Expert and Author of Which? Property Books
Localism and New Homes Bonus Back Firing
According to the Home Builders Federation, planning permission for new builds are half the rate that were granted for back in the boom years of 2006. The Home Builders Federation says “Local authority planning permission for house building in Q4 of 2010 continued their decent after two successive quarterly falls.”
The Housing Pipeline statistics show that only 33,000 homes were approved for construction in Great Britain from October to December 2010, a massive 22% on the previous year. HBF’s executive chairman Stewart Baseley said “These figures are extremely concerning.” And according to Kate Faulkner, they are a disaster. “If the coalition government doesn’t want to see house prices rising over the next five years, they have to encourage more building. Unfortunately the new localism bill, changes to planning and the new homes bonus are contradictory. One encourages new homes through financial incentives, the others discourage building due to nimbyism”.
"What the Coalition don’t seem to understand", continues Kate, "is that when it comes to building homes, money is not something that will incentivise a village or community to say ‘yes’ to building new homes on the fields or open space next to their homes. It is also naive to believe that elected local councillors will choose financial incentives to back building projects over votes from local communities who are unlikely to want new homes next door.”
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