Section 6 of the Autumn Budget 2017 Policy Paper covers Housing. The information could affect home owners, first time buyers, builders and developers amongst others. The section is split up into a number of subheadings…
- Housing
- Housing Supply and Productivity
- Planning for more homes
- Ensuring planning permissions are built out faster
- Developer Contributions
- Housing Investment
- Homeownership
- Homelessness
- Support for Renters
Here’s a snippet from the www.gov.uk website
6.1 Housing.
The government is determined to fix the broken housing market, and restore the dream of home ownership for a new generation. In England, average house prices are now almost 8 times the average workers salary; in parts of the West Midlands, they are over 9 times; in London, they are nearly 12 times. Despite the governments support for home ownership – such as helping over 320,000 people through the Help to Buy schemes – home ownership rates have declined. This is especially true for young people, for whom home ownership has fallen by 20% since 2003-04.
The cost of housing near the most productive centres of employment has become a barrier to productivity growth. High house prices can prevent people from living near the best job opportunities for them, limiting the productivity of companies that might have employed them.
The only sustainable way of making housing more affordable in the long term is to build more homes in the right places. The government has made strong progress: housing supply has increased by over 1.1 million since 2010, including more than 300,000 affordable homes. The latest figures show that housing supply increased by 217,000 last year, up from 137,000 in 2010.
There is no single solution to this problem. The government needs to push on all fronts. The Budget announces a comprehensive package of new policy which will raise housing supply by the end of this Parliament to its highest level since 1970, on track to reach 300,000 per year, through:
- making available £15.3 billion of new financial support for housing over the next five years, bringing total support for housing to at least £44 billion over this period
- introducing planning reforms that will ensure more land is available for housing, and that better use is made of underused land in our cities and towns
- providing £204 million of funding for innovation and skills in the construction sector, including to train a workforce to build new homes
The Budget also announces further support for those getting on the housing ladder now. The government will permanently raise the price at which a property becomes liable for SDLT to £300,000 for first-time buyers to help young people buy their first home. The relief will not apply for purchases of properties worth over £500,000.
To see the full Policy Paper for the Autumn Budget 2017, please click HERE
