Housing in the Conservative Manifesto

The Conservative Party launched their manifesto this morning. In the two years since the last election, housing (and planning) level of importance has plummeted with no mention in the five key priorities of the next Tory administration and little mention until the last gasp in the Tory manifesto.

The headline pledge from the last Tory administration has been retained – the plan to build one million homes by 2020 – and has now been supplemented with a further 500,000 to be delivered by 2022…. Obviously ambitious, this promise is supported by pledges to help pro-development councils to build their own new homes and a use it or lose it clause for developers on approved schemes. The conservatives will also make the reforms outlined in the Housing White Paper.

As ever, electoral politics prevail with the commitment to protecting Green Belt land ever present.

So the manifesto contains no new money and no huge new ideas, but the commitment (albeit limited) to help authorities build new housing stock will be welcomed while the progress of use it or lose it powers will have to be watched. Its only after the election we will see who is put in place to deliver this programme – and it will only be then we will know what weight the subject is really being given. All indications are that it won’t be Sajid Javid in the hot seat!

Conservative’s Housing Policies In Brief

• Deliver one million homes by the end of 2020; and a further 500,000 by the end of 2022
• Give councils power to intervene to prevent developers ‘landbanking’
• Supporting ‘high quality, high density’ housing (Mansion blocks, mews houses and terraced streets)
• Building 160, 000 homes on government land
• Protecting the Green Belt, National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• Support housing associations to increase specialist stock for older people
• New ‘Council Housing Deals’ with ‘ambitious, pro-development’ local authorities
• New ‘fixed-term’ social housing sold privately after 10-15 years and automatic Right to Buy for tenants
• Reform of Compulsory Purchase Orders to allow quicker sale of land
• Continue existing £2.5billion flood prevention programme to benefit 300,000 homes by 2021
• Existing commitment to Housing White Paper reforms to free up land in the right places for homes is maintained