White Paper sets out to ‘fix the broken housing market’
February 2017

The government has today (7 February) introduced its plans to ‘fix the broken housing market’ and build more homes across England.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid says the current system isn’t working and is one of the greatest barriers to progress in Britain today.

The strategy includes helping councils to make developers start building on land they own, and making renting more ‘family friendly’ with longer tenancies.

The government says at least 250,000 new homes are needed each year to keep pace with demand and local councils and developers need to "get real" to the scale of the challenge.

In a statement to MPs, Javid outlined initiatives including:

• Forcing councils to produce an up-to-date plan for housing demand
• Expecting developers to avoid "low-density" housing where land availability is short
• Reducing the time allowed between planning permission and the start of building from three to two years
• Using a £3bn fund to help smaller building firms challenge major developers, including support for off-site construction, where parts of buildings are assembled in a factory
• A "lifetime ISA" to help first-time buyers save for a deposit
• Maintaining protection for the green belt, which can only be built on "in exceptional circumstances"
• Introducing banning orders "to remove the worst landlords or agents from operating"

Housing white paper ‘Fixing our broken housing market’