Archive for April 30th, 2010

So at the last leaders’ debate the housing question was finally raised. But no sooner were hopes raised, than expectations were predictably dashed.
It would be too much to expect our political leaders to know every spit and cough of policy, but their ramblings on housing were those of men who had hastily swotted up on the issues in the spin room beforehand. They all – sort of - talked about providing affordable homes and helping first-time buyers, confronting the housing shortage and reforming the planning system. But you could tell they were clueless. They repeated like a Latin declension test initiatives such as shared ownership, shared equity, part buy/part rent, but like the majority of the public they were home ownership options they knew very little about.
Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg is no friend of the housebuilder, looking to slap VAT on new homes, which, considering the profile of new homes purchasers, is a tax on first-time buyers and young families. Their Mansion Tax is one of those ‘bash the rich’ vote winners, as if every home over £2 million is owned by a big, bad banker, rather than those who have toiled long and hard – and paid plenty of tax in the process – to climb to that rung of the ladder.
All parties bleat on about building affordable homes, but if campaign leaflets in Brown’s Rochdale – sorry Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath – constituency, Cameron’s Witney and Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam, dropped through letter boxes, promising to build loads of new homes locally, they would not even get re-elected as MPs next week, yet alone dream of Downing Street.
Tory constituencies are patrolled by Nimbys, while Brown, whose party pledged three million new homes by 2020, had the temerity last night to say: “The housebuilding industry has not served us well.” As if those slackers in the building trade have been drinking too much tea, rather than constructing new homes for the great unhoused. Housebuilding, through the supply of permissioned land through the planning system, is effectively state controlled. The Labour party has not served us well – not well at all.

Rupert Bates is editorial director of www.whathouse.co.uk. Follow Rupert at www.twitter.com/rupertbates.

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