Newington's Joshua Lindsey looks at what the smaller parties have to add to the debate on housing and planning.

The Liberal Democrats

If current projections are to be believed, the Liberal Democrats are actually on course to lose votes in this election. With this in mind, it could be tempting to downplay the importance of the Liberal Democrats, but projections can be wrong and it is only two years since the party were in Government.

The crux of the Liberal Democrats manifesto on housing is the pledge for a £100 billion infrastructure and investment package. This, they promise, will mean 300,000 homes a year are built by 2022, along with improvements to infrastructure, schools, and hyper-fast broadband coverage. 

What's more, the Liberal Democrats promise to build ten new garden cities, scrap right-to-buy pilots, and scrap affordable housing exceptions for smaller developments.

On planning policy, they would create a community right to appeal in cases where the planning decisions go against the local plan. Local authorities and housing associations would also have their borrowing caps removed to free up capacity to build council housing.

Local authorities would also be able to levy up to 200% on ‘buy to leave properties’ which currently lie empty, a policy which will no doubt win a few votes within Zones 1-2, but is in reality unlikely to make much of an impact outside London.

UKIP

Although UKIP’s role in this General Election looks to be relatively slim, the manifestos of marginal parties are worth consideration as they may have some influence on the future policy of the mainstream parties. After all, prior to the result of the Brexit referendum, few would have thought UKIP’s flag ship policy would fundamentally reshape the future of the United Kingdom.

Whilst the brunt of the reporting around UKIP’s manifesto focused on the party’s strong words around terrorism and Brexit, buried away inside were the following pledges on housing:

UKIP promise to establish a Housing Development Corporation which will, where necessary, use compulsory purchase powers to acquire brownfield sites and build new modular homes.

Somewhat incredibly, these homes will be available for under £100,000 and there will be one million available. Restrictions would be placed to stop resale to the open market, instead ‘owners’ would be forced to sell them back to the Housing Development Corporation.

Such is UKIP’s confidence in this single policy that it forms nearly the entirety of their approach to housing. Aside from this, they propose freeing up publically owned land and changing the law so that mortgages can become inheritable, a proposal borrowed from unidentified ‘other countries’, according to their manifesto.

Housing associations also come in for a great deal of criticism in UKIP’s manifesto.  UKIP blame the largest housing associations for a ‘catalogue of failures’, including executive pay, failure to build homes and failing to tackle anti-social behaviour. UKIP threatens housing associations with ‘a review into their operation’.

Elsewhere in the manifesto, UKIP promise to hold local referenda on major development, scrap ‘vanity projects’ like HS2, and amend planning guidance to promote green spaces and play spaces.

Green Party

Ever the optimists, the Green Party’s manifesto calls for a ‘confident and caring Britain’. Their target seats include Bristol West, Bristol South and Norwich South, all of which they hope to peel away from Labour. In reality, they will likely only continue to hold their one seat of Brighton Pavilion, where party co-leader Caroline Lucas is deeply embedded.

Where planning is concerned, the Green Party propose an Environment Protection Act to promote biodiversity and sustainable agriculture. They would also introduce stricter green belt, SSI and AONB protections.

When it comes to existing homes, the Green Party commits to a public works programme to insulate homes and protect them from flooding. For renters they would introduce a swathe of regulations to control rents and introduce mandatory licencing for all landlords. The Green Party would also abolish the bedroom tax and scrap Right-to-Buy.

Notably, the Green Party is very light on details about how they would deliver new homes- they focus largely on renting and social housing, issues which will no doubt play well with the younger voter demographic they tend to attract.