Our Views: Housing White Paper

//Our Views: Housing White Paper

Our Views: Housing White Paper

The Government published its Housing White Paper yesterday, a 104 page document setting out how the Government plans to fix the country’s broken housing market.

There are mixed views on just how deliverable the paper will be and how long it will take to make a difference to people’s lives. But we’re encouraged to see the focus on affordability and sustainability of accommodation. Both of which are critical to the women and families we support. We hear this regularly from our clients, where for many stable accommodation is the kick start they need to move forward with their lives. But research also tells us how important stable accommodation is:  Children who move regularly are less likely to gain 5 GCSEs grade C and above and adults who move are less likely to be in employment than non movers.

For us, getting housing right doesn’t just help those who are directly affected by homelessness or poor standard, expensive, transient accommodation. It provides a bedrock for a thriving and civilised society that we all should take a stake in.

Key points from the white paper include:

  • Ensuring areas fully understand housing requirements and can plan ahead to meet the needs of our future population.
  • Clarifying what land is available and making more of it available, whilst protecting green belts.
  • Giving communities a voice in new developments, and making best use of space e.g. by encouraging higher densities and reviewing space standards in urban high demand areas.
  • Supporting Local Authorities, Developers, smaller builders and other organisations such as Housing Associations. To increase speed of building new hoses, reduce bureaucracy, boost capacity and reduce risk of building new homes.
  • Making renting fairer.
  • Helping the most vulnerable who need support with their housing, developing a sustainable approach to funding supported housing and doing more to prevent homelessness.

 

It will be interesting to see how things move forward and just how quickly we see changes happening in Luton and Bedfordshire. We’ll update this site with our views along the way!

The full paper can be found: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-our-broken-housing-market

 

By | 2018-05-15T23:54:04+00:00 February 8th, 2017|Uncategorized|0 Comments

About the Author:

Stepping Stones was set up in May 2008. We are a registered charity (Charity number 1162349) offering free, confidential and non judgmental support.

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