The industry has welcomed the Government announcement that starter homes will be built this year after it chose 30 partner councils to progress the first discounted homes – in cities and regions across the country.
Gavin Barwell, minister of state for housing and planning, said the homes would be sold exclusively to first time buyers between 23 and 40 years old, at a discount of at least 20% below market value.
Brownfield sites are being prioritised for starter homes, with funding made available via the government’s £1.2bn Starter Homes Land Fund.
Mr Barwell said that this first wave of partnerships shows the strong local interest to build thousands of starter homes on hundreds of brownfield sites in the coming years.
The news comes in quick succession of Monday’s Government announcement of the development of 14 new garden villages and three garden towns, with the capacity to deliver more than 48,000 homes.
Julia Evans, chief executive of BSRIA, said: “BSRIA welcomes both of these announcements which suggest that tackling the housing crisis is on the Government’s agenda for 2017 and is clearly a top priority. It also supports BSRIA’s long running coverage of the housing issue.
“But building homes is a matter of quality as well as quantity. The focus on more volume makes quality more important than ever and an added emphasis on the status of the quality of homes is crucial to guarantee that in challenging the housing crisis we are not building the costly slums or soulless estates of tomorrow.”
The garden villages will have access to a £6m fund over the next two financial years to support the delivery of these projects. They are an expansion of the existing garden towns programme, for smaller projects of between 1,500 and 10,000 homes.
Brian Berry, chief executive of the FMB, said: “It’s great to see the Housing Minister kick off 2017 by giving the green light to the first Starter Homes. These homes will help some first time buyers get a foot on the housing ladder, and our small house builders are enthusiastic about delivering on that vision, but starter homes will not be a panacea. A wider set of measures aimed at increasing the capacity of the house building industry are needed to overturn the long-term under-supply of new homes.”
More details on both initiatives are anticipated later in January when the Government publishes its housing white paper.
