Concerns raised over silence on garden cities
The government has come under fire for not including support for garden cities in its house building plans.
Ministers yesterday announced a £3.3 billion, three-year extension of the affordable homes programme, as well a £400 million ‘affordable rent-to-buy’ scheme, and £102 million to get stalled sites moving.
But the Town and Country Planning Association said the government has ‘missed the opportunity’ to set out a longer-term solution to lack of housing supply by endorsing a new wave of garden cities.
Chief executive Kate Henderson said: ‘The scale of the housing crisis is such that we need radical and long-term solutions to meeting our housing need.’
The government has previously appeared keen on garden cities, but the initiative has been absent from recent policy announcements including the March Budget and this week’s spending round.
In November 2012, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg promised to create incentives to build ‘big and bold’ garden cities.
Other organisations were also critical of the level of support for affordable housing in the spending round.
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the £3.3 billion was a ‘disappointing cut in subsidy and won’t deliver the ambitious house building programme we need’.
Shadow housing minister Jack Dromey described the announcement as a ‘hammer blow to the hopes of millions of people in need of a decent home at a price they can afford’.
However James Pargeter, head of residential projects at Deloitte Real Estate, said the cash would be broadly welcomed because housing associations had feared they might not get any funding. Although he also warned the low level of grant might mean some developing landlords decide not to take part in the 165,000-home scheme.
