Tens of thousands of ‘quick-build homes’ to form key part of the Government’s plans to tackle Britain’s housing crisis
Factory-built homes and custom-made apartment blocks will help to get properties on to the market quicker
BRITAIN is to get tens of thousands of new quick-build homes as part of Government plans to tackle the housing crisis.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said yesterday that factory-built homes and custom-made apartment blocks will be a key part of his white paper of proposals, due later this month.
Mr Javid is visiting Germany this week to learn about new innovations in house building abroad.
"These are made-to-measure, ready-made, ready-to-go modern stylish homes and if Germany can do it and other countries can do it I think they can be an important part of what we can deliver in UK," he told Sky News.
He said that the new homes were far quicker to build, which will help get them on the market sooner. The minister suggested they could reduce the lead time to "a couple of years or even less".
Earlier this month the Government pushed forward with plans to build a dozen garden villages across England.
Ministers backed 14 bids across the country to develop new communities with between 1,500 and 10,000 homes from Cheshire to Hampshire.
Around £6 million in funding has been earmarked to develop the new villages, which could generate 48,000 new homes, with £1.4 million going towards the towns.
RELATED STORIES
But Labour's Shadow Housing Minister John Healey said the measures were not enough to offset the past few years of slow house building.
Only 190,000 homes were built last year - it is estimated around 250,000 are needed annually to keep up with demand.
He told Sky News: "Ministers have made hundreds of housing announcements but they've added up to the lowest level of affordable house building in 24 years, a fall in levels of home ownership, homelessness which has doubled."
Planning permission and strict laws are major stumbling blocks for getting new homes built.
The Cabinet minister wants to review laws which stop building plans if neighbouring homes would be cast in shadow.
The number of new homes is up 11% from the previous 12 months, but will still leave the government woefully short of its election promise to build one million more by 2020.
And the Communities Secretary is likely to face opposition from MPs in leafy suburb seats, where residents are unlikely to support more new houses to be built near them.
Ministers are said to be worried about plans to force councils to increase their house building targets - at a time when local authorities are already strapped for cash.
And campaigners set out to protect green-belt space will fiercely oppose any suggestions to build on protected land.
Theresa May said in her leadership launch speech that Britain needs to do "far more" to get houses built.
She said: "Because unless we deal with the housing deficit, we will see house prices keep on rising. Young people will find it even harder to afford their own home.
"The divide between those who inherit wealth and those who don’t will become more pronounced. And more and more of the country’s money will go into expensive housing instead of more productive investments that generate more economic growth."