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Queen's speech: new affordable housing stand demanded

The BPF has called on ministers to expand the definition of affordable housing amid criticism of rehashed legislation in today's draft Queen's Speech announcement.

Ian Fletcher, BPF director for residential policy, said:

"We hear a lot of talk about 'empowerment' and 'sustainable communities' but essentially what people want is better quality housing and improved community services. The British Property Federation supports moves to see greater local authority involvement in regenerating communities, but what we need is clear leadership and policy that looks how the development industry works, not a slew of new systems. We hope the new Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) will help facilitate this change in emphasis, certainly there have been some positive signs it will, and we look forward to working with it.

"We believe one of the key drivers in turning around the housing crisis is a re-evaluation of affordable housing. Current measures are too prescriptive and the system means that too many vulnerable people are missing out. Affordable housing must be extended to include more types of low cost housing as well as private rented properties. Both these types of property are, in reality, affordable. By demanding an overly strict amount of affordable housing on top of housing that is already affordable, the government is stopping new homes coming forward."

BPF spokesman, Andrew Teacher, also raised the issues of creating a 'build-to-let' professional rental sector on Simon Mayo's BBC Radio 5 Live programme this afternoon.

Copy and paste this link to listen: http://www.4shared.com/file/47583082/44c82cb9/Is_it_better_to_rent_part_3.html

For more info, contact 020 7802 0113 / 07968 12 4545 / ateacher@bpf.org.uk