You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Influential centre-right thinktank calls for 250,000 key worker ‘homes for heroes’
An influential Thatcherite thinktank has urged the government to build a new generation of 250,000 homes over five years to help key workers get a foot on the housing ladder.
A new report by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) called for changes to help key workers, such as nurses and teachers, buy a home to repay them for their efforts during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the CPS, the initiative would also help to increase the supply of new homes overall – the government’s objective for planning reforms – while complementing ministers’ new First Home product aimed at boosting homeownership.
The report argues that new local plans as currently proposed by the government should ensure that land for 50,000 homes a year should be set aside for Homes for Heroes across England. This would give 250,000 such properties across the five-year land supply that the government is aiming for, while helping key workers into homeownership.
It stated that Homes for Heroes would also “encourage private investors to work with local councils, delivering affordable homes for key workers”.
The report, co-written by former Number 10 housing advisor Alex Morton, argued that the government could deliver such a scheme at no real cost by enabling access to existing housing guarantees.
This would not be a new commitment, but would involve reallocating around £5bn pledged but currently sitting unused, it said.
READ MORE
“This approach would also help diversify the housing market, encouraging new market entrants, new products and a new customer base,” the report said.
It also suggests that the definition of ‘key worker’ could be expanded, as in other countries, with a focus on those who had to keep working in critical, public-facing roles throughout the coronavirus pandemic, and include all relevant private sector workers as well as public sector workers.
Last year, the G15 and other housing associations launched a campaign for a Homes for Heroes programme to build 100,000 homes for key workers after the pandemic. They called for the government to fund the delivery of 100,000 affordable homes, which is different to the CPS report as that focused on homeownership and existing funding mechanisms.
In the housing associations’ campaign, the phrase Homes for Heroes drew inspiration from the ‘Homes Fit for Heroes’ national council housebuilding programme that welcomed soldiers back from the First World War 100 years ago.
CPS describes itself as Britain’s leading centre-right thinktank and previously topped a poll of the most influential thinktanks among Conservative MPs.
The government has previously adopted housing and planning policies first proposed by centre-right thinktanks.
The Homes for Heroes report follows on from a recent report by the CPS in April which said that planning permissions were a “one way gift” to developers which boost land value without any obligation to deliver new homes.
The report, which was backed by housing minister Christopher Pincher, said that the planning system had helped to create a “bottleneck” that concentrated land supply in the hands of giant house builders.
Sign up for our development and finance newsletter
Already have an account? Click here to manage your newsletters
