Homes for the future
Summary
This Green Paper
'Homes
for the Future: More Affordable, More Sustainable’ (Cm. 7191) sets out the
Government's strategy for housing based on three key objectives:
- More homes to meet growing demand
- Better designed and greener
homes, linked to good schools, transport, and healthcare
- More
affordable homes to buy or rent.
Proposals include:
- A new housing target of building two million homes by 2016 and three
million homes by 2020 to meet growing demand and address affordability issues
- An £8 billion programme for affordable housing in 2008-11, a £3
billion increase compared to the previous three years, with at least 70,000
more affordable homes a year and 45,000 new social homes a year by 2010-11
- An invitation process for local authorities and developers to propose
five new eco-town schemes, with the entire community designed to be able to
reach zero carbon standards. Each scheme could provide between 5,000 and 20,000
new homes.
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How does it
affect me?
If you are interested in the future provision of housing,
this affects you.
These proposals are to be delivered through a number
of measures including:
- Increased infrastructure support
- Reviews of regional plans
- A new Housing and Planning Delivery
Grant to incentivise councils to deliver high levels of housing and new
guidance to help councils identify available land for housing
- More use
of public sector land and disused land to maximise development on brownfield
sites
- Better use of existing buildings by bringing long-term empty
homes back into use
- The creation of the new homes agency to provide
expertise for local government in negotiating, brokering, and partnering to
underpin delivery.
Read more on housing policy on the
Department for
Communities and Local Government website.