The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has aimed to boost the delivery of more social and affordable housing by giving them more powers to purchase cheaper land.
The changes will mean that local authorities are able to buy land for development by using compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) and not have to pay inflated costs.
Previously councils had been forced to pay ‘hope value’, which estimates what the land could potentially be worth if developed further down the line. These had led to local authorities paying thousands of pounds in excess to buy land for development.
The new powers not only aim to bring costs down, but also to reduce delays and accelerate building, allowing the councils to speed up their delivery of affordable and social housing.
Jacob Young, parliamentary under-secretary of state for housing, said the changes would “act as a catalyst for investment in our towns and cities and drive much-needed regeneration in communities across the country”.
He continued: “We know we need to build more homes and alongside our long-term plan for housing, these changes will help us do that, unlocking more sites for affordable and social housing, as well as supporting jobs and growing the economy.”
Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: “Enabling local councils to buy cheaper land through CPOs without paying hope value will allow them to build more of the desperately needed affordable homes the country needs, in the right places, for the people who need it most.”
Kate Henderson continued to say that the changes “must sit alongside wider reforms to planning policy” to tackle the housing crisis, while also citing the need for a coordinated and fully-funded long-term plan for housing across the whole country.
