Stephen Williams' views on affordable housing
One of my Party's aims is to provide one million affordable homes by 2020. We would do this by freeing up the planning rules to give local authorities more discretion and incentives, making available public land for affordable housing and increasing investment in affordable housing. If elected, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I would act to release public sector land to Community Land Trusts, taking out the cost of buying land to develop, so they can build thousands of affordable homes for their local communities. We would end the unfair tax on Council tenants' rent, allowing local councils to reinvest rent in building new social homes in their area. In addition, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I have campaigned to cut VAT on repair and renovation to encourage developers to repair and reuse empty buildings and brownfield land, rather than always building over the countryside or urban free spaces. In areas where second homes are overwhelming the local housing market and harming local communities, we will give councils the power to require planning permission before turning another full-time home into a holiday home.
Under this Government the number of families on social housing waiting lists has risen almost 70% to 1.77m and the Local Government Association predicts that it will reach 5 million people by 2010. But the number of social homes available has fallen dramatically by almost half a million homes since 1997. With the credit crunch hitting hard and mortgage costs rising sharply many families are facing the risk of repossession and homelessness. A recent survey by Shelter found that one million families spend more than two-thirds of their income on housing. These are families that are on the brink of repossession and homelessness, but under Labour the social housing safety net has been whittled away. With far too few social homes available families are unable to move to more suitable properties when their families grow.
At a party conference last year the Liberal Democrats asserted their belief that:
A. Every family should live in an affordable and sustainable home.
B. In order to meet current and future housing needs, more affordable housing needs to be built than the Government is currently proposing, increasing the proportion of homes available for social rent and intermediate sale.
With a lack of affordable housing in Britain, it is vital that we realise the potential of existing housing stock. As this problem is especially relevant in Bristol I have previously written the Government about this issue.
My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I believe that the Government has not done enough to reduce the number of unoccupied properties in Britain. Given the real need for affordable housing, the use of existing housing stock is something which I believe needs to be recognised. My Party believes that the issue of housing is intimately related to that of climate change and sustainability. We believe that housing policy must not only utilise existing housing stock, but that it must ensure that these properties are renovated to a sufficient standard in order to provide a sustainable and environmental benefit to their communities.
For years the Government has failed to tackle cold and drafty homes, leaving many families with unaffordable heating bills. We believe that everyone has a right to live in a warm home. If elected we would make British homes more energy efficient; saving both the planet and the money in people's pockets. Emissions from new homes (which will make up 25% of UK homes by 2050) will have significantly lower carbon emissions from 2011 and be zero carbon from 2015.
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