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Minister calls for council and developer partnerships to meet long term housing needs

Junior communities minister Iain Wright yesterday reiterated calls made by housing minister Caroline Flint for councils to work with developers to build a professional rented housing sector.

At a Town and Country Planning Association fringe event at the Labour Party conference, Mr Wright slammed Liberal Democrat housing policy as “nimbyism”, and said “development is a positive thing and should be encouraged as much as possible”.

Mr. Wright previewed the government’s forthcoming review of rental housing, due to be published by Dr Julie Rugg on 23 October.

“Why is it considered solely acceptable to rent as a student but not in your forties?” he said.

“We need to increase the professionalism of the sector. Many areas were decimated by Margaret Thatcher’s ‘Right to Buy’. We need to incentivise good landlords and penalise bad ones”, he said.

The minister called for councils to create ongoing relationships with developers to build quality housing in which they had an ongoing interest. He recognised that this was the model used by commercial developers and that we should look to incise these firms into delivering quality long term housing.

Mr. Wright added: “Local authorities have a key role to play in terms of what housing is needed, rather than have an adversarial contest, a long term trusting relationship is vital.”

Speaking at the event, British Property Federation spokesman Andrew Teacher said:

“It is vital that councils make use of the powers they already have to encourage build to let, and be as innovative as possible in how they work alongside developers.”

For more information contact Maddie Williams at the BPF on 0207 802 0364 / mwilliams@bpf.org.uk