EXCLUSIVE: Michael Gove plans to scrap rules that force developers to build affordable homes

40 comments
  1. I feel a bit ambiguous about this. On the one hand the money for housing could be better spent by local authorities, and the affordable homes built as part of larger housing projects can be humiliating, with separate doors, restricted access to facilities and so on vs. the other homeowners.

    It also reduces bureaucracy which could help build more homes

    On the other hand, LAs are so desperate for cash that this will probably be spent on everyday costs than affordable housing development

  2. https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/a-fifth-of-tory-party-donations-from-property-sector/5112738.article

    https://www.ft.com/content/c5737fbb-2893-4a5a-be5e-965785f1a37b

    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/property-tycoon-donates-150k-to-tories-48-hours-after-housing-development-is-approved-275899/

    https://m.truckerworld.uk/2020/09/millionaire-tory-donor-pushes-us-style-caravan-parks-to-solve-housing-crisis/

    Could keep on listing more websites , even obscure things. However if you ain’t got the cash and paid a Tory you have fuck all. Maybe in this sub, we could crowd fund for a Tory and see what we allowences we can get back in return?

    Actually they are not donors they are shareholders. Or maybe the Tory’s are into prostituting themselves to the highest bidder?

    Ft is behind a paywall..

  3. “How do we solve the housing crisis? Nobody can afford to buy a house.”

    “We could remove requirements to build houses that are affordable?”

    “Gove you’re a genius. Have a line of cocaine.”

  4. I live in Dunfermline. I’ve noticed that there is a large number of apartments vacant above most properties in the high street & elsewhere. Why can’t they be compulsory purchased then rented out

  5. Quell surprise. Man directly involved in the corruption deal that landed her getting raided is now looking to enrich himself.by removing even poorly applied and enforced legislation

  6. Everything they do makes Britain worse.

    I can’t think of a single policy decision the Tories have made that gives genuine benefit to the UK.

  7. The article says that the money will be redirected for councils to build social housing, which I don’t think developers build. I might be wrong, but isn’t the lack of social housing just as pressing an issue (if not more) than low cost housing?

  8. Nothing like building a bunch of investment vehicles for oversea millionaires to really improve the country.

  9. Probably a good thing since the affordable homes policy was a bit of a joke that made politicians and their voters feel good about themselves for doing something to help with the housing crisis, but in reality the policy does very little good at all.

    If you folks would take your biased hats off for one second, you’d see there is some potential good in a policy like this and that we do need a change to the affordable homes policy.

    This may not be the perfect solution, but at least it’s someone trying to do something a bit different, because clearly what our governments have done since the 90s has not worked very well at all.

    Affordable homes mean very little when the home is £400k, the size of a shoebox and comes with a leasehold and service charge fee that would make your eyes water.

    Are we really losing much by changing that policy to open up funding for social housing?

  10. This is a bullshit reform, but it’s not like developers were helping with the housing crisis anyway. They managed to get the definitions of “affordable housing” skewed so much it barely meant anything anymore.

    IMHO we need a state owned public sector house builder. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to rely on developers to do what’s needed and build the types of houses, and in the quantity, we actually need.

  11. “Affordable homes” do not exist as a separate class of asset to “homes”. The un-affordability of housing can not be fixed by the planning system.

  12. It’s probably better for councils to plan and construct purpose-built social housing isn’t it? Instead of Barratt Homes building shoeboxes because they have to?

    Glasgow City Council built some really good assisted rental flats up the road from me when I lived there, they were much nicer than the actual privately owned flats in the area.

    If the councils choose not to use the money brought in by the levy then that’s their decision.

  13. What “affordable” housing is this they speak of?

    The 2 bed boxes _starting_ at £250k in my home town? Or the flats built in the old BBC Television Centre that started at the “affordable” price of £700k?

  14. It’s almost as if…bare with me here…the developers are massive tory donors and want to make even more money than the billion quid profit that persimmons made.

  15. Looks like no one actually read the article then. Just muh tories bad.

    They are scrapping the scheme which forces developers to build affordable housing on their developments and instead giving the money direct to the council for social housing. Social housing is cheaper than affordable housing.

  16. They should scrap (some) building regulations instead. That would make houses a lot cheaper per square foot, like in America.

    Also, I wonder what their criteria for ‘affordable’ was. Under £350k?

  17. In fairness their definition of an affordable house never matched the reality. A 400k first time buyer house in an estate of 650k houses is no affordable. Something new is needed imo. Something that means they are genuinely affordable…maybe something like an application process. ..where u have to show that yiubwill live in the house and don’t already own 5 others..I dunno

  18. Fantastic news. All affordable housing does is massively inflate the costs of new market rate housing because developers are forced to build and sell some properties at below market rates and incur losses which have to be recouped by the market rate properties.

  19. Personally I’m completely in favour of developers not being required to build social housing.

    I feel that the government should be responsible for building social housing not private enterprise.

    I own (well, have a mortgage on) a home on a fair sized council estate that was built in the seventies. If the government were able to organise this on the past I don’t see why they can’t now.

    If they took a strategic view of building social housing themselves they could save a load of money by not paying private landlords.

    Most of the houses on my estate are council owned and since they were built will have paid for themselves several times over.

    Why doesn’t the government build mixed estates, with the sold ‘premium’ housing paying for the social housing? The housing shortage in this country can only be solved by the government pulling their finger out!

  20. I bet last week everyone was whinging that the affordable homes policy isn’t fit for purpose and that developers just plonk a row of shitty poorly built terraces on the back corner of their new estate and call them affordable.

    The policy isn’t fit for purpose but because a Tory wants to scrap it then everyone is up in arms about how its such a horrible thing to do.

    If people got out of this attitude where they have to be contrary to anything to do the Tory party then they’d see that this policy was shit and needs scrapping.

  21. Can somebody explain to me, from an economic standpoint, how building (for example) 1,000 small ‘affordable’ homes results in housing becoming more affordable than building 1,000 large ‘not affordable’ homes in the same area would?

    I would have thought that if you build small houses then ultimately (once those small houses have been sold into the market) you still end up paying the same price for houses on average, but people get less house for their money, and therefore building ‘affordable housing’ is a pretty daft idea unless them being affordable also means that more houses are built. However, not many other people seems to think this so I feel like I’m missing something. Could somebody please explain?

  22. I’m voting in person on May 5th. I haven’t voted in the locals for 20 years.

    This time I feel it’s imperative, and so should you

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