The Liberal Democrats have reaffirmed their commitment to ambitious plans to accelerate housebuilding to 300,000 new homes every year at the party’s conference in Glasgow.
The conference motion, proposed by the Party President Tim Farron, includes plans for the creation of a Housing Investment Bank to boost homebuilding and deliver homes to help low-income working families who are earning too much to get a place in social housing but unable to afford a home on the open market.
Other reforms would see planning authorities gain the right to designate New Home Zones to make building quality affordable homes possible and the roll out of a large-scale apprenticeships programme to deliver the skills needed to make these projects happen. Nick Clegg has previously called for the building of as many as ten new garden cities to help tackle the country’s growing housing shortage and the policy motion passed by the Liberal Democrat conference today backs this plan.
Liberal Democrat Party President Tim Farron, said: “These plans are ambitious but achievable. Most experts say we need to build up to 300,000 homes per year to tackle the problem of under supply and stop housing costs from spiralling out of the reach of ordinary families.
"We need good quality homes in well planned communities. We need a long term strategy to build ourselves out of a housing crisis without building ourselves into a social crisis. That is exactly what we are going to do and why we are committed to the 300,000 target. It is integral to building a stronger economy and a fairer society where there is opportunity for everyone.
“Today we have set out the policies that will help deliver that target- for example enabling planning authorities to designate New Home Zones to build good quality, affordable homes in communities with the infrastructure and green spaces which people value. “Successive Tory and Labour governments failed to grapple with homebuilding over the last decades. Neither can be trusted to deliver the reforms we need to ensure that enough new homes are built.”
