Building Societies Association
Although the media interest may have been about the likelihood of a general election, delegates to all three party conferences found themselves with a wide range of housing topics to discuss.
The Prime Minister lead the way at the Labour event. In his speech to the faithful he extolled the Government's record in building not just more new homes, but ensuring that they were built in an environmentally friendly way,
However, it was housing minister Yvette Cooper who toured the conference fringe imploring delegates to ensure that they are able to overcome local pressure to prevent new housing taking place. She said that new housing is desperately needed, and if new homes are not built now, it will be future generations that pay the price. She also defended the Government's record on the delivery of new housing, claiming that housebuilding is currently at its highest level since 1990.
At the Conservative event, headlines were grabbed by the Shadow Chancellor's announcement on inheritance tax, which started the whole event off on a high. However, shadow housing minister Grant Shapps had a busy week defending his stance of supporting greater levels of housebuilding yet opposing increases in housing in his constituency.
He maintained that it was the Government's plans for imposing new homes in large numbers on communities that he opposed, rather than housebuilding per se. Describing the Government's policies as ‘Stalinist’, he went onto say that such development swamped local social infrastructure, and that was the reason why people opposed new development. Building more, albeit much smaller, developments would lessen the impact on local communities, he argued, making local residents much less likely to oppose them.
And the Liberal Democrats continued to look at affordability issues rather than exclusively at increasing supply. Housing spokesman Paul Holmes predicted an increase in repossessions as the impact of higher interest rates started to be felt by homeowners. He said a further 250,000 social properties for rent were urgently needed, while low cost housing to buy should be built through community land trusts to ensure that they remain affordable in perpetuity.
The Prime Minister lead the way at the Labour event. In his speech to the faithful he extolled the Government's record in building not just more new homes, but ensuring that they were built in an environmentally friendly way,
However, it was housing minister Yvette Cooper who toured the conference fringe imploring delegates to ensure that they are able to overcome local pressure to prevent new housing taking place. She said that new housing is desperately needed, and if new homes are not built now, it will be future generations that pay the price. She also defended the Government's record on the delivery of new housing, claiming that housebuilding is currently at its highest level since 1990.
At the Conservative event, headlines were grabbed by the Shadow Chancellor's announcement on inheritance tax, which started the whole event off on a high. However, shadow housing minister Grant Shapps had a busy week defending his stance of supporting greater levels of housebuilding yet opposing increases in housing in his constituency.
He maintained that it was the Government's plans for imposing new homes in large numbers on communities that he opposed, rather than housebuilding per se. Describing the Government's policies as ‘Stalinist’, he went onto say that such development swamped local social infrastructure, and that was the reason why people opposed new development. Building more, albeit much smaller, developments would lessen the impact on local communities, he argued, making local residents much less likely to oppose them.
And the Liberal Democrats continued to look at affordability issues rather than exclusively at increasing supply. Housing spokesman Paul Holmes predicted an increase in repossessions as the impact of higher interest rates started to be felt by homeowners. He said a further 250,000 social properties for rent were urgently needed, while low cost housing to buy should be built through community land trusts to ensure that they remain affordable in perpetuity.
