On Wednesday, peer-to-peer lender Assetz Capital announced it cautiously welcomes Sajid Javid’s proposed housing intervention. According to the lending platform, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government revealed that government will play a more active role in stopping property developers from hoarding land, threatening to remove planning permissions if construction targets are not hit and with strong suggestions that compulsory purchase orders could be used. Javid revealed to The Times:
“The government needs to play a more active, more muscular role. Through Homes England, we are hiring 400 people this year, a new CEO and giving it a lot more firepower to act. Where Homes England has identified surplus public land in the past it would sell that off to the highest builder, but there was no requirement on speed. I think it’s in the public interest to say if we’re going to make this land available to you, builder, we want you to build it in 3 years and not 10 or 15.”
Speaking about Javid’s proposal, Stuart Law, CEO at Assetz Capital stated:
“These are exactly the sort of noises we need to hear coming from government if we are to address the housing crisis, and something we have called for repeatedly over the years, if carefully executed. Last November our Investor Barometer found that 72% of our investors would strongly support local authorities to carry out compulsory purchase orders for suitable and unused land directly next to towns and villages. Only 0.6% of these respondents caveated their support by saying they wouldn’t want any development in their immediate local area.”
Law then added:
“At the time we called this the ‘death of the nimby’ and some in the government appear to have read the people’s view perfectly. Now we need to see this rhetoric turn into action with some tangible results, but opposition from Theresa May who wants no change to greenbelt boundaries – and is a prime example of one of the few remaining nimbys – does remain a potential block to this.”