Monday 1 October 2012

Labour to build 100,000 affordable houses. A promise or a wish.?


Today Ed Balls will announce at the Labour Party Conference that the  billions of pounds raised from the sale of 4G mobile licences will be used to help young people get on the property ladder,

He will claim that  this it will provide £500million to spare  first-timers paying stamp duty on properties worth up to £250,000.

The rest of the cash – another £2.5billion – will be spent on building 100,000 more affordable homes.

Mr Balls will tell the Labour party conference

: ‘With 119,000 construction jobs lost in two years and a 68 per cent fall in the number of affordable homes being built, we need bold and urgent action now.’ 
Labour wants to revive a construction sector which has shrunk by ten per cent in the first half of this year. 

Stamp duty, which is set at one per cent for homes between £125,000 and £250,000, can add up to £2,500 to the cost of buying a modest first home. For homes up to £500,000, the rate is a yet more prohibitive three per cent.

Maybe I'm wrong here but it's worrying that a desperate need for affordable housing seems to be dependent on New Generation Technology.

How many first time buyers are buying houses over £125,000 outside the South East of England and  rural Holiday destinations?

And of course even if ED Balls was to enter no 11 in 2015  the current government may have already spent the money raised from these Licences

I'm not totally against this proposals but if this the best Labour can offer then we really are in trouble.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Labour are building half those houses in Cardiff! No joke! Check out the reports about Neil McAvoy, Plaid on Cardiff Council being chucked out of council meetings for just repeating what were on Labou's election leaflets.