With the anticipated new Housing White Paper due to be published by the end of the year by Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, there remains great speculation on whether the proposals will be considered by some as an early Christmas present or not.

With the backdrop of Brexit, alongside the housing crisis across the UK and the Conservative-manifesto pledge to build one million homes by 2020, the pressure will be on Mr Javid to ensure that, in his own words, “fundamental reshaping of housing policy takes place”. Mr Javid has fuelled many fires by promising that the upcoming Housing White Paper will contain “some more radical measures to really boost the supply of homes…”

Since the Housing White Paper announcement at this year’s Conservative Party Conference, some ideas on what will be included have been proposed. Below is a brief outline of some ideas that we can expect.  

• Housing height limits to be relaxed. A law dating back to 1947 currently prevents new homes from being taller than surrounding buildings. However, this government is keen to scrap this to help aid further building of new homes;
• Councils to produce five-year housing quotas. A number of local councils are currently working to deadlines to produce their Local Plans and on top of that, they will have to deliver key and realistic five-year housing quotas as a way to help plan for future town’s populations and supporting infrastructure.
• Getting tougher on both local councils for refusing to approve new homes to meet local needs, and on developers who refrain from building on consented land. Mr Javid attacked “nimbyism” recently stating that whilst everyone agreed more homes were needed, “too many” oppose them. Mr Javid, however, also attacked developers for their “stranglehold on supply”. Neither situation is helpful clearly. Such rhetoric is powerful; whilst he is breaking away from his predecessors approach, it is clear that Mr Javid wants to local communities, councils and developers to have a greater working relationship to deliver the much-needed homes. 
• Greater support for SME housebuilders to increase competition. Although Mr Javid outlined recently that the £5bn of funding to support smaller developers and encourage innovative building methods were “short term”, he has not held back on criticising the UK housebuilders and developers for not building more quickly, stating: “It time to stop sitting on land banks and stop delaying buildout, The homebuyers must come first.

Mr Javid has called housing his “number one priority”, which is appropriate to match his Party’s ambition to be the Party of housebuilding.  He stated earlier in October “My message today is very clear: it’s time to get building.” We agree; and as soon as the White Paper is published, we’ll get reading. Until then we await with great expectations…