House-Building Targets Must Be Met, Says CLG

In their newly published Housing and the Credit Crunch report, the Communities and Local Government Committee urge the Government to maintain their house-building targets despite the credit crunch.The targets were for three million new homes to be built by 2020, two million of them by 2016.

Within this, a minimum of 70,000 new affordable homes were to be built each year, 45,000 of which should be social rented homes.Now, however, the Committee has suggested that a greater proportion of the new homes being built should be used for social housing, as well as calling for new measures to help people facing repossession.

Today's report also raised concerns about the £975 billion that the Government has already borrowed from its 2010-11 budgets for new social house-building, and says it must make clear how this sum will be paid off.

"A Decent Home for All"

Commenting, Dr Phyllis Starkey MP, Chair of the CLG Select Committee, said: "The credit crunch has not reduced the numbers of households needing new housing, nor does it affect the need to address years of undersupply.

"The message which we received from witnesses during our inquiry was clear: the steps the Government is taking are welcome, but further action is needed if the Government is to have a chance of meeting its targets for home building and achieving the goal of a decent home for all."We are particularly concerned that the Government is borrowing from future budgets now with apparently no idea how it is going to restore that money at a later date."

Key recommendations in today's report were that the CLG should:• Put pressure on the Treasury to implement measures to revive the mortgage markets.• Increase construction of new social housing and accelerate refurbishment programmes for existing social housing.• Use opportunities to acquire additional social housing such as buying family homes which have been on the market for more than a year.• Make low-cost ownership schemes easier to understand, and have three clear options: shared-equity; shared-ownership; and rent-to-buy.• Encourage public sector bodies to make land available for new homes developments.• Consider sanctions against lenders who repossess homes too quickly.• An OFT recommendation for sale-and rent back schemes should be implemented to protect homeowners who are falling behind in mortgage payments.