The government should invest in housing factories as part of a string of interventions to solve the housing crisis, a thinktank has urged.
In a report entitled Disrupting the housing market, Localis called on the government to make it easier for councils to re-designate green belt land to encourage more housing, start work on new towns in the South East, build housing factories and use public land more directly.
The thinktank said local authorities should be allowed to re-designate green belt land through creating “yellowfield registers”, where land suitable for housing developments could be listed “where green belt protection is unwarranted”.
It also recommended that the government “take a more muscular role in the planning and delivery of new towns in the South East”, including further use of compulsory purchase orders and large amounts of loan funding to the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).
The report also said that the HCA and local authorities should enter into more joint ventures with institutional investors.
The report recommended that the government provide more data on available public land to encourage councils and housing associations to propose more partnerships and joint ventures with government.
Jonathan Goring, managing director of Lovell, which sponsored the report, said: “As a developer of housing of all tenures, Lovell plays a frontline role in helping to tackle the undersupply of new homes in the UK.
“We are calling for more flexible and imaginative use of greenbelt and public land, and more widespread use of modern construction techniques. These measures will more swiftly deliver new homes in places where people want to live.”
The report comes less than a week after Inside Housing reported that Accord plans to open an offsite factory with the capacity to build 1,000 homes a year. The Midlands association also plans to set up factories for other social landlords under license agreements.
Original link - Inside Housing
