Lifting the borrowing cap should enable that housing gap to be substantially closed - BSA
Responding to the Prime Minister’s speech today at the Conservative Party Conference, Robin Fieth, Chief Executive of the Building Societies Association has released the following statement.
We’re delighted that the Prime Minister has announced that the Government is scrapping the cap on council borrowing limits against the Housing Revenue Account, today in her speech at the Conservative Party Conference – something we have been campaigning for over a number of years.
We have heard lots of warm words from government about tackling the need for truly affordable homes. It is great that they are now taking action that will make a tangible difference in boosting the supply of much-needed local authority housing.
As called for in the BSA’s 2017 ‘Lengthening the Ladder’ report, driving a range of housing across all tenures is crucial to solving the housing crisis.
The recent report ‘The Evolving Private Rented Sector: Its Contribution and Potential’ funded by the Nationwide Foundation and authored by Dr Julie Rugg highlighted that the private rental sector is being asked to meet demands for social housing that it was never designed to do.
We know there is a direct correlation between the shortage of housing in the UK and the rapid decline of council house building since the early 1980s. Lifting the borrowing cap should enable that gap to be substantially closed.
