Political Parties all similar

The three main parties are taking similar approaches to housing and planning in their pre election jockeying for position. Those are the findings from research carried out by Cambridge Consultant Surveyors Januarys.

 

Nick Muncey, Head of Januarys Agency Department, explains what they found and why they carried out the research.

 

“A General Election is on the horizon and the parties are already jostling for your votes.

 

“In Cambridge and the surrounding area, housing is a large and contentious issue. There is constant pressure to build more homes of all sizes and affordability levels, whilst at the same time retaining the character of the city and local villages.

 

“Given that housing and planning is something that affects all of us, directly or indirectly, we thought it was important to discover what the main parties had to offer.”

 

“What strikes us immediately is that everyone’s agreed on most of the major housing issues. We need more homes; they must be affordable and sustainable and they must have sufficient supportive infrastructure.

 

“Both the Lib Dems and the Tories are keen to de-centralise the planning process. The Tories say that “Local people need to decide where new homes should go, instead of Whitehall bureaucrats. And they say they’ll “Use incentives to encourage new homes to be built.”

 

“The Lib Dems take a similar line. “We will devolve powers and responsibilities to local people and their councils, freeing them from stifling Whitehall rules and targets,” they say. “Communities will be free to set their own priorities and targets, and will be given the flexibility they need to tackle the issues they face by giving a power of general competence to councils.”

 

“Labour also seem keen to get things moving, with a pledge to unblock the planning system and release land for development. They have also pledged new incentives for councils and developers to bring forward land more quickly.

 

“So it’s clear that whoever wins house building will increase and there’ll be more local involvement.

 

“All three parties also want to build greener homes. Everyone’s promising to make houses more environmentally friendly, with the Tories taking an incentive based approach and Labour aiming to have all new homes carbon neutral by 2016. The Lib Dems ‘will raise the requirements of Building Regulations to ensure that all new homes are energy efficient from 2010 and will use ‘Green Loans’ to encourage people to invest in home energy efficiency and micro-renewables.

John Healey, Labour’s Minister for Housing has spoken of his party’s plans to create the biggest council house building programme in almost two decades.

The government has pledged to spend £141m on council housing in a bid to tackle waiting list pressures.

The programme, when match-funded by local authorities, is expected to see more than 2,000 homes built across 49 councils.

Labour is also targeting at least 70,000 more affordable homes a year by 2010-11. The Tories want to give more help to those to want buy their homes and more mobility to those that don’t or can’t. Tenants will also be able to choose to have their housing allowance paid direct to their landlord.

 

“The Lib Dems have promised to build, ‘thousands and thousands of extra social homes’ partly by setting up Community Land Trusts, and to drive up standards in the private and public rented sector.

”All parties are keen to see more empty homes brought back into use. 

 

“The Tories are the only party pledging to get rid of Home Information Packs and they also want to scrap Stamp Duty on homes up to £250,000.

 

“It seems clear that whoever wins, the drive to more, sustainable housing is unstoppable, with empty homes being another main point of focus.

 

“The only question is, which party’s route do you prefer?”