Ed Miliband’s proposal, shared in his speech at the Labour Party conference yesterday, to allow local authorities to take back land from housebuilders would fail and would not deliver any new homes, warns property and planning law firm Winckworth Sherwood.
Karen Cooksley, a partner and planning law expert at Winckworth Sherwood said: “Successive governments have tried and failed to force the public sector to release land for housing. Forcibly taking land off housebuilders into the public sector will undoubtedly face legal challenges.
“Ed Miliband would be far better focusing his attention on making local authorities and other public sector organisations release land they hold for new homes as government has more direct control over them. He could start by making sure central government departments are first in line.”
Karen adds: “Home ownership is also not the only solution to solving our housing need. There is a real need to increase the size of the private rented sector in the UK on an enormous scale as not everyone wants or can afford to own a home. There is an appetite from new and institutional investors.
“These proposals are largely a repetition of existing – Coalition Government – policy. It is time for genuinely new thinking if inroads are to be made into our rising housing need.”
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