HBA: warmly welcomes abolition of cap on what councils can borrow to build houses
National Federation of Builders
Lifting the borrowing cap for councils will diversify the housing market, stimulate industry capacity and help councils more easily meet their affordable homes requirements.
The Prime Minister Theresa May has shown her commitment to help fix the housing crisis by announcing the abolition of cap on what councils can borrow to build houses, in her keynote Conservative party conference speech.
The Housing Builders Association (HBA), the house building division of the National Federation of Builders (NFB), is delighted that the Government is helping tackle the crippling house crisis, by listening to the industry and finally addressing concerns which the HBA has lobbied on for quite some time.
The HBA has had the cap on local authority borrowing for new housebuilding as a measure in all of its past manifestoes and the entire supply chain has worked hard towards achieving this. Lifting councils’ house building cap will now help small and medium-sized (SME) builders and councils to work together to deliver the Governments’ target of delivering 300,000 homes a year.
Richard Beresford, chief executive of the NFB, said: “The NFB congratulates the prime minister for recognising a substantial barrier preventing the Government from meeting its target to build 300,000 new homes a year.
“Lifting the borrowing cap for councils will diversify the housing market, stimulate industry capacity and help councils more easily meet their affordable homes requirements. The entire housing supply chain should be very proud of their collective campaigning on this issue.”
