HBA: Labour's housing plan should focus on planning reform
National Federation of Builders
Jeremy Corbyn has delivered a speech in Harlow explaining that a Labour government would address the housing crisis by building one million new homes, half of which would be council houses.
The House Builders Association (HBA) believes that the country is suffering from an acute shortage of housing and welcomes the Labour Party’s focus on housing affordability and diversifying the market. However, failing to concentrate on planning reform as the barrier to housing supply and diversity is a serious error made by this and previous governments.
Rico Wojtulewicz, policy advisor for the HBA, said: “We don’t only need to build many more new homes; we have to build the right types of homes. We would certainly support councils building more homes, but the underlying problem is that we cannot hope to meaningfully increase the number of new homes until we have reformed the planning process.
“Small and medium-sized house builders build homes for the entire market. Without their expertise and capacity, we can never hope to build the homes that ordinary working people need and want.”
