Autumn Statement: Mood Music?

In the absence of the Housing White Paper, the industry is still left needing to mind the gap. We have simplified budgets - abolishing the Autumn Statement - but no hint of simplified planning for growth.

The overall commitment to housing is welcome mood music, but the lack of detail on powers and fiscal incentives to support locally-led Garden Towns to deliver at the scale needed leaves a hole. Expanding grant funding for affordable tenures is great news but at £25,000 per unit is not going to be life changing.

The £2.3bn Housing Infrastructure Fund could be a game changer if it is used to reward areas for proactively planning for growth. Making an up to date housing land supply a condition for at least some of the funding would dangle the right carrot for authorities that currently only have the stick. The lack of fiscal measures for new settlements - incentivising forward funding of major infrastructure that can unlock delivery at real scale - is disappointing though.

Affordable Housing is heading towards life support - delivery in 2015-16 was 52% lower than last year. The announcement in the Autumn Statement of a funding injection to deliver 40,000 affordable homes is welcome. It is a clear recognition that addressing the housing shortage is not simply about building more homes. Yes, we need more but they must meet a variety of needs. There are further signals of a softening of the Government's stance on Starter Homes - tenure flexibility replacing David Cameron's commitment to a single tenure.

Without the Housing White Paper, there is also still a wait to see how the NPPF is going to be reshaped and in particular how housing land supply and Local Plan duties will be re-set following expert advice on accelerating delivery. If the Community Infrastructure Levy is to be replaced by a...

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