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| MONDAY 4TH APRIL 2005 |
 UK
HOME OWNERSHIP TO GROW BY A MILLION
More people will have the opportunity to own an affordable
well-designed home, the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
and Chancellor Gordon Brown have announced.
John Prescott launched further details of the Design for
Manufacture competition, challenging house builders to design
high quality homes with a construction cost of around £60,000.
Public sector land is being provided for 1,000 homes; the
first phase of 470 homes are to be built at Oxley Park, Milton
Keynes; Oxford Road, Aylesbury; Upton, Northampton and Allerton
Bywater Millennium Community, near Leeds.
The government's national regeneration agency English Partnerships
(EP) will also oversee the delivery of thousands more affordable
homes on many of the sites in a portfolio of nearly one hundred
ex-NHS sites, the first tranche of which will be transferred
from the Department of Health to EP next week.
Low cost home ownership received a further boost today when
the Deputy Prime Minister launched a key consultation paper,
setting out government's proposals to introduce simpler,
fairer home ownership opportunities for more people, whilst
protecting the supply of social homes.
HomeBuy, first announced in January, will help key workers,
social tenants and other first time buyers to buy a share
of a home and so get a first step on the housing ladder -
with three variants offering choice in the type of home people
can buy:
New Build HomeBuy and Open Market HomeBuy would take
elements of existing low cost home ownership schemes to offer
simpler, fairer assistance to those who want to buy a share
of a new home built with public subsidy, or a share of a
home that is for sale on the open market.
Social HomeBuy would introduce new opportunities for thousands of social
tenants who cannot afford or do not have the Right to Buy to buy a share of
their existing home with a discount on their share - and would protect the
supply of social homes by enabling landlords to reinvest sales proceeds.
The consultation closes on 24 June 2005. The government
is aiming to work closely with local authorities, housing
associations and other key stakeholders to have the new HomeBuy
arrangements up and running by April 2006.
Recent research shows that 81% of people aspire to be home-owners,
compared to the 70% rate that has so far been achieved, so
the government's announcement that it will encourage expansion
of home-ownership has been welcomed by The Council of Mortgage
Lenders.
Helping people into long-term sustainable home-ownership
not only helps fulfil the aspirations of voters, said the
CML, but also delivers significant benefits for government.
In particular, home-ownership:
Gives people the chance to build housing wealth on which
they may be able to draw later.
Offers the potential to reduce the extent to which they rely on welfare.
Extends a form of tenure that is less expensive for the government than providing
subsidised rented housing.
However, while welcome progress is being made, there are
still details to be finalised before an expanded shared equity
scheme can be successfully launched. It urged the development
of a detailed project plan to ensure that the planned launch
date of April 2006 is achievable and will be met.
CML's deputy director general Peter Williams said: "While
the proposed expansion of shared equity through HomeBuy is
relatively modest, it shows a welcome commitment to expanding
home-ownership that the government and lenders can build
on in future."
"Home-ownership will clearly be a key issue in the
forthcoming general election, and encouraging the sustainable
expansion of owner-occupation is a policy area that each
of main political parties will need to address."
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