The government’s reliance on private developers to meet its housing target is “misguided” and the housebuilding market is “oligopolistic”, a House of Lords report has said.
The country is too reliant on the eight largest housebuilders, which build 50% of new homes, and local authorities and housing associations need to get back into the “business of building”, according to the report.
The cross-party House of Lords economic affairs committee found that England needs 300,000 new homes built every year – 50% more than the government target – to tackle the housing crisis.
Committee chairman Lord Hollick said local government and housing associations needed to get back into the “business of building”.
He said: “It makes no sense that a local authority is free to borrow to build a swimming pool but cannot do the same to build homes.”
Other recommendations included:
• A senior Cabinet minister should be given overall responsibility for identifying and co-ordinating the release of public land for housing, with a particular focus on providing low cost homes. The National Infrastructure Commission should oversee this process.
• Council tax should be charged on development that is not completed quickly.
• Local authorities should be given the power to increase planning fees. Local authorities should be able to set and vary planning fees to help fund a more efficient planning system and the upper cap on these charges should be much higher than the current limit.
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