{"id":14756,"date":"2018-03-08T15:45:34","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T15:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=14756"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:59:07","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:59:07","slug":"housing-crisis-theresa-may-planning-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=14756","title":{"rendered":"‘Tinkering around the edges’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Housing campaigners were left disappointed this week after prime minister Theresa May revealed policies that did little to tackle a shortage that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been plaguing the UK for years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Planning laws<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In her speech<\/a> on Monday (March 5), May blamed councils for blocking planning permissions that she argued is a main driver of the housing crisis. The prime minister threatened to bring in independent inspectors if councils were thought to be blocking housing development in their area or were failing to meet their housebuilding targets.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But the criticism fell flat when the Local Government Association (LGA) highlighted that councils are approving about nine in 10 planning applications. LGA chairman Lord Porter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a Tory peer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c said the figures showed the \u00e2\u20ac\u015bplanning system is working well and is not a barrier to building.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNearly three-quarters of planning refusals are upheld on appeal, vindicating councils\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 original decisions,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is completely wrong, therefore, to suggest the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s failure to build the housing it desperately needs is down to councils,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Lord Porter added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe threat of stripping councils of their rights to decide where homes are built is unhelpful and misguided.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe last time the country delivered 300,000 homes which this country needs each year, in the 1970s, councils were responsible for more than 40 per cent of them and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s essential that we get back to that. In order for that to happen, councils have to be able to borrow to build homes again.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Borrowing to build<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Allowing councils to borrow to build was an idea floated by housing, communities and local government secretary Sajid Javid last year but the plans were dropped in the Autumn Budget\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c chancellor Philip Hammond only lifted the borrowing cap in \u00e2\u20ac\u0098high need areas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 , allowing them to borrow a limited \u00c2\u01411bn extra.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A cross-party group of MPs last month called on the government to lift the housebuilding borrowing cap<\/a> entirely, saying it was the only way to meet the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stated target of 300,000 new homes each year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s housing spokesman John Healy said the prime minister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest announcement shows the government has \u00e2\u20ac\u015bno proper plan to fix the housing crisis. Eight years of failure on housing is the fault of Whitehall, not town halls.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSince 2010, home-ownership has fallen to a 30 year low, rough sleeping has more than doubled, and the number of new homes being built still hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recovered to pre-recession levels,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Healy slammed housing secretary Sajid Javid after it was revealed last week that he failed to spend millions of pounds allocated to affordable housing<\/a> in the last two years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last year, Javid sent \u00c2\u014172m back to the Treasury and the year previous he failed to spend \u00c2\u0141220m budgeted for affordable housing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Affordable housing crisis<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The scale of the affordable housing crisis was further revealed on Monday (March 5) as it emerged that of the 15,000 new homes being built in Manchester over the next few years, not one of them is affordable<\/a>. In Sheffield, of the nearly 7,000 new homes being built, only 97 are earmarked as affordable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The lack of affordable housing was once thought to be only entrenched in the capital but the latest figures have raised fears that the affordable housing crisis is spreading.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Homelessness too is skyrocketing<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c last year was the seventh year in a row that the number of people sleeping rough in England has climbed. Since 2010, homeless numbers have shot up by 169 per cent.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The homelessness crisis was highlighted yesterday (March 7) at Prime Ministers Questions<\/a>, as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn slammed the Tory government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inaction on the issue. Corbyn pointed out that a homelessness taskforce that was set up four months ago had yet to meet \u00e2\u20ac\u201c May corrected him saying they had met once that very morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner likewise condemned the Tory government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s record on housing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a problem he argued was complex but solvable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is a national scandal that one of the most basic human needs \u00e2\u20ac\u201c decent, safe and affordable housing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is out of reach for far too many people. This housing crisis was manufactured by the Tories and the prime minister\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s policies announced this week are little more than tinkering around the edges.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou cannot increase the affordable housing supply by merely tweaking planning laws. Councils need to be given the powers to borrow to build council and other genuinely affordable homes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we need to build at least 300,000 each year to keep up with demand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe millions of households who rent privately cannot be totally abandoned as they have been under this government either. It is scandalous that even the smallest leg up to private renters from this government — the policy to ban letting agency fees — has yet to go through well over a year after it was announced. What we need is rent controls and regulations on private landlords \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if these policies can work in Germany and France, they can work here in the UK too.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Housing campaigners were left disappointed this week after prime minister Theresa May revealed policies that did little to tackle a shortage that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been plaguing the UK for years.   Planning laws In her speech on Monday (March 5), May blamed councils for blocking planning permissions that she argued is a main driver of the housing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[109,131],"wps_subtitle":"Theresa May's housing policies condemned by Unite","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14756"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26348,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14756\/revisions\/26348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}