RICS has urged the chancellor to provide a degree of certainty for the housing, property and infrastructure sectors in his next Budget.
The institution has advised Osborne against viewing property as a “deficit-reduction cash-cow to compensate for tax freezes elsewhere”.
Similarly, RICS states that local planning departments should not be targeted for cuts as this will hinder the sector’s ability to deliver much-needed homes and infrastructure.
There also needs to be clarity over how devolved powers will work and where property sits within any new funding settlement, according to the institute.
RICS has put forward three suggestions for the budget: infrastructure investment should be ring-fenced so that private investors are not deterred from coming forward; planning departments should be bolstered to become enablers of development; and a prospectus for cities devolution should be published, setting out what new funding, powers and responsibilities are on offer and how they will work in order to stimulate property-led growth.
