David Cameron’s announcement today that the government will be involved in the direct commissioning of new homes on public land isn’t a huge surprise in that it continues an exploratory policy announced in the last Parliament. But what is a surprise is that this policy was announced by the Lib Dems and is now being continued, rather than killed, by the Tories.
It was Danny Alexander who said at the launch of the 2014 National Infrastructure Plan that ‘we will be undertaking a detailed government review to examine the potential of direct government commissioning for housing to deliver the number of homes we need’. Yet it is Cameron today who is trumpeting a ‘huge shift in government policy on housing’. The government will commission up to 13,000 homes on public land, including those announced by Alexander at Northstowe in Cambridgeshire.
This suggests that the Conservatives have concluded that the state does indeed need to be involved in order to deliver truly mass housebuilding.
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