The Prime Minister will today urge new design standards to ensure
high-quality homes, more social housing, and further tenant
rights as part of an ongoing housing revolution.
Addressing the Chartered Institute of Housing conference, she is
also expected to set out next steps on the Social Housing Green
Paper agenda, with an action plan expected in September.
Her intervention comes as figures indicate that, by autumn, a
million homes will have been added in under five years.
In Manchester, the number of extra homes being created is up 12
per cent, in Nottingham by 43 per cent, and in Birmingham by 80
per cent. The number of affordable housing starts has also
increased to nearly 54,000 this year.
Welcoming these figures, the Prime Minister said:
“This is a government with a bold vision for housing and a
willingness to act on it.
“A government that has delivered radical reforms for today, and
the permanent structural changes that will continue to benefit
the country for decades to come.”
But she will also warn against complacency, saying:
“The housing shortage in this country began not because of a blip
lasting one year or one Parliament, but because not enough homes
were built over many decades.
“The very worst thing we could do would be to make the same
mistake again.”
Last year, more additional homes were delivered than in all but
one of the previous 31 years.
But the Prime Minister is clear the quality of housing must not
be compromised by the drive to build more homes.
She will call for new regulations to mandate developers to build
higher-quality housing.
Currently, some local authorities make Nationally Described Space
Standards a condition of granting planning permission.
But many do not - and even where standards are applied, they are
not mandatory.
The Prime Minister will say this has resulted in an uneven
playing field, with different rules in different parts of the
country, leaving “tenants and buyers facing a postcode
lottery.”
Mandatory regulations would be universal, and provide clear,
national standards - potentially leading to increased
housebuilding.
The Prime Minister will say:
“I cannot defend a system in which owners and tenants are forced
to accept tiny homes with inadequate storage…
“Where developers feel the need to fill show homes with
deceptively small furniture…
“And where the lack of universal standards encourages a race to
the bottom.”
She will also confirm plans to end so-called “no-fault”
evictions, with a consultation to be published shortly.
The Prime Minister will announce the timetable for further action
on the Social Housing Green Paper agenda, calling for more
high-quality social housing, better tenant rights, and demanding
landlords demonstrate how they have acted on concerns
raised.
Whilst admitting there is more to do, the Prime Minister will say
reforms have made it easier to get homes built in the right
places - including via the £5.5 billion housing infrastructure
fund, and by giving local authorities greater freedom to use
brownfield sites.
Further progress made in the housing market includes:
• 80% of first time buyers
taken out of stamp duty altogether
• £2 billion of extra funding
into the Affordable Housing Programme to build homes for social
rent
• Capped rent deposits and
abolished letting fees, cutting the amount tenants have to find
up front and making it harder to exploit house-hunters.
• Ending “no fault evictions”
to stop landlords evicting tenants at short notice.
