Large housebuilders are not engaged in systematic land bankingaccording to the Oliver Letwin report on housing developers, Chancellor Philip Hammond announced in today’s Budget.
Large housebuilders are not engaged in systematic land bankingaccording to the Oliver Letwin report on housing developers, Chancellor Philip Hammond said in today’s Budget.
Hammond added that in the New Year he will respond in full to the report in February.
The report read: "The review concluded that greater differentiation in the types and tenures of housing delivered on large sites would increase the market absorption rates of new homes – the binding constraint on build out rates on large sites – and has set out recommendations to achieve this aim."
Saadat Khan, chief executive and founder of modular offsite manufacturer, Comfortable Living, said: “Any initiative to combat the inadequate delivery of property stock is a step in the right direction, but another lacklustre focus onpropertywill no doubt leave UK home buyers and sellers feeling let down once again.
“For far too long we’ve been held to ransom by the greed of the big house builders, dictating where and when they want to build and land banking in order to maximise their own profits.
“Yet again today we’ve seen the Chancellor sidestep responsibility in bringing them to task on the issue of land banking and it leaves the small self-builders of this nationwith little or no chance of competing.
“The one slight silver lining was the additional amount of funding for the British Business Bank to support small developers, but this is merely tokenistic and is by no means enough.”
Healsosaid he willprovide£5.5bn to the Housing Infrastructure Fund todeliver 650,000 homes andprovidefunding to empower 500 neighbourhoods to provide homes at sale or a discount to locals.
Hammond said that the government is consulting on conversions of commercial properties into new homes.
He said he wants to keep private homes from capital gains tax but will change the rules as in some cases it’s being abused and will give extra money for the Docklands Light Railway will deliver 19,000 homes.
