Homes for the Future

The Housing Green Paper 'Homes for Future' was published in July 2007. It outlines plans to build 3 million new homes across Britain by 2020, and to put an extra £8bn funding into affordable housing.

The proposals have been broadly welcomed as a major step to reverse the trend over the last 30 years of fewer houses being built, which has led to the current housing shortage and soaring house prices.

House prices have doubled in the last decade so that in London, the South East, South West and the East of England the average house price is over 8 times the average wage. The Green Paper also points out that the percentage of private renters who can afford to buy has more than halved in the last decade.

In welcoming the proposals, Shelter points out there are over 1.6 million people on council house waiting lists in England alone, and fellow homelessness charity Crisis is calling for at least 750,000 social rented homes to be included in the 3m total.

The Defend Council Housing (DCH) campaign, supported by several trade unions representing key workers, is calling for the restoration of powers to councils to build and manage social housing. They have issued 5 demands in response to the Green Paper. As Jack Dromey of the Unite union said, "Council house building has collapsed from 300,000 to 300 a year in a generation".

The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) is concerned that "such a huge increase in housebuilding could sharply raise the rate at which countryside is built on and add to the environmental damage associated with housebuilding". They have published their alternative proposals.

From a different environmental angle, Friends of the Earth, believes the Government's proposal to make all new homes carbon neutral by 2016 should be achieved by 2010. Our homes are currently responsible for over 25% of UK carbon emissions.

Construction union UCATT highlights concerns about the exploitation of construction workers and calls for an apprenticeship training programme to train a new generation of skilled construction workers - which would seem all the more necessary with the construction necessary for the Olympics and Crossrail in the same timeframe.

The Green Paper also looks at how local authorities can benefit from the increased value from planning decisions. The Labour Land Campaign has some alternative proposals for Land Value Tax, which are compelling.

The Government has also pledged to publish a 'National Strategy for Housing in an Ageing Society' in the Autumn, which may please Help the Aged - which believes the Housing Green Paper is a "missed opportunity" for older people's housing.

The Housing Green Paper 'Homes for the Future' can be downloaded from the Department of Communities and Local Government website, and the deadline for responses is 15th October 2007.