Tag Archives: conservative
Report highlights low number of first time buyers in UK housing market
First time buyer numbers in the UK remain 2.2 million behind where they should be given demographic trends despite significant government investment in home ownership, according to a new report. The report from the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLS) suggests that it means that current policy behind interventions in the housing market is missing the mark but they are likely to remain priorities for any new government that emerges in the post-Brexit political environment. The report finds that government investment in home ownership, including through the 15 different Own Your Own Home schemes currently on offer, is yet to have the desired upward effect on home ownership levels. Schemes including the Help to Buy ISA and the Starter Homes Scheme are designed to boost home ownership. They will also expand a demographic that has traditionally voted for the Conservative party, the report points out. At the 2015 General Election, 46% of outright owners and 39% of mortgaged home owners voted Conservative against 28% of private tenants and only 18% of social tenants, meaning homeowners remain a vital demographic for the Conservatives. This approach of extending support to help first timers get on the property ladder is partly being funded by the Conservatives’ second major intervention in the housing market, managing demand through the introduction of extra tax on buy to let and second home purchases. The report explains that the Exchequer is set to raise around £1.7 billion a year from these new taxes, although spending on home ownership far exceeds these costs and the latest UK Housing Review research from the Centre for Housing Policy estimates Government spending on home ownership in England through grants, guarantees and loans will total £40 billion over 2015 to 2021, equivalent to over £6.6 billion a year. But despite Government efforts to bolster home ownership, first time buyer numbers are still tracking lower than expected. The IMLA report finds that between 2007 and 2015 the number of first time buyers in the UK was some 2.2 million lower than past demographic trends suggested it should have been. The report also points out that so far some 90,000 new home sales have been made under the Help to Buy equity loan, NewBuy and FirstBuy schemes and a further 74,000 mortgages have been completed with the support of the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme but the government has failed to reverse the decline in home ownership. Indeed, between 2010 and 201, the latest year for which data is available, the number of owner occupied homes in the UK fell by 270,000. This decline may now be stalling as the latest English Housing Survey showed no change in owner occupation rates between 2013/2014 and 2014/2015, but there is yet to be any increase in home ownership levels. The IMLA’s analysis of data from the Building Societies Association (BSA) suggests more people worry about accessing a mortgage than affording one. In research conducted in March 2016… Continue reading
Research shows majority of UK parliamentarians support planning fees rise
Some 61% of MPs in the UK broadly agree that planning fees should increase and almost half 47%, say they should increase with stronger guarantees on planning performance. Indeed, MPS from all political parties support fees being changed, according to a new poll commissioned by the British Property Federation (BPF). Some 65% from the Labour party and 61% from the Conservative party support an increase in fees. The BPF says that the results show that Parliamentarians recognise that there is a problem, alongside the property industry and local authorities. The BPF and GL Hearn’s 2015 Annual Planning Survey revealed that 55% of local planning authorities perceived under resourcing to be a significant challenge, and that 65% of applicants are happy to pay more to shorten waiting times. The government has taken some steps to address this problem, proposing to allow local authorities to outsource the processing of planning applications and to reward well performing local authorities by allowing them to increase planning fees by an inflationary increase, but the BPF has warned that these steps will not go far enough. Responding to a government consultation on the technical planning changes set out in the Housing and Planning Bill, the BPF has welcomed the government’s recognition of the fact that local authorities ‘are struggling to provide the service required by applicants’, but cautions that the measures suggested will not be enough to plug the skills gap. ‘The public and private sectors have both been very clear about the need for more resourcing in local authority planning departments, and we now know that there is political understanding of this issue as well,’ said Melanie Leech, BPF chief executive. ‘We are supportive of the small steps that government is taking to address this, but are not holding out hope for any great impact. Some local authority planning departments are simply short staffed, putting those who remain under enormous strain,’ she explained. ‘Outsourcing the processing of planning applications is likely to relieve this burden to an extent, but it is not going to solve the chronic shortage of skills and resource that is the true problem,’ she added. Meanwhile, land broker Aston Mead is advising councils without up to date local housing plans in place to act quickly before the Government steps in to write their plans for them. Local authorities have been given until March 2017 to produce a local plan in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which was introduced in 2012. However, with less than a year to go, recent research suggests that fewer than a third of local planning authorities outside London have an up to date NPPF compliant plan. ‘It’s absolutely incredible that with the deadline looming large on the horizon, so few councils have got their act together. By next year they will have had five years since the introduction of the NPPF and yet the vast majority have still to… Continue reading
