Commenting on the Prime Minister’s speech today about new plans for homes, Joe Shalam, Policy Director at the Centre for Social Justice, said:
“Today’s announcement is a noble attempt to boost home ownership among those on the lowest incomes. But if the Prime Minister wants to secure a housing policy legacy comparable to Margaret Thatcher’s, he must accept that (in stark contrast to the early 1980s) there is an acute shortage of decent, affordable homes today. This is one of the social injustices of our time.
“Beyond the better-known pressures in London and the southeast, an estimated 2.39 million people across the Midlands, Yorkshire and North of England struggle with the affordability and quality of their housing. More demand-side tinkering just won’t cut it.
“The CSJ has long called for a move from ‘benefits to bricks’, and so we particularly welcome proposals to securitise the £30bn wall of housing benefit spending to unlock new social housing. Still, the Government must now recommit to combining serious planning reform with a national mission equivalent to that seen following the Second World War to build the thousands more homes our country desperately needs.
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