Responding to the Prime Minister’s call for new design laws to ensure high-quality homes and a pledge for more social housing, the LGA’s Housing spokesman, Cllr Martin Tett, said:
“There is a critical need for renewed national leadership on standards for new homes, which give certainty to councils, developers and communities. These standards should future-proof all new homes ensuring they are accessible for all ages and all markets, meet the housing needs of our ageing population and are environmentally sustainable.
“High-quality homes for affordable and social rent are desperately needed across the country now, and councils need to be able to play a leading role in solving our housing crisis. The last time this country built homes at the scale that we need now was in the 1970s when councils built more than 40 per cent of them. Councils were trusted to get on and build homes that their communities needed, and they delivered, and they can do so again.
“It was good the Government lifted the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap but it now needs to go further in the Spending Review by devolving Right to Buy so councils retain 100 per cent of their receipts and can set discounts locally.
“It should also scrap permitted development rights which take away the ability of local communities to shape the area they live in, ensure homes are built to high standards with the necessary infrastructure in place and have resulted in the potential loss of thousands of desperately-needed affordable homes.”
