Autumn Statement: £400m pledge for stalled construction
CONSTRUCTION projects and young families looking to buy a home have been given a boost in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement.
George Osborne outlined plans to kick start building projects which already have planning permission by allowing companies which cannot get bank finance to tap into a £400m fund.
Meanwhile, the Chancellor promised to use the government’s low interest rates to help young families which cannot save up the large deposit required by banks and lenders to secure a mortgage.
In the statement, he said the government would use mortgage indemnities to help 100,000 such families buy newly-built homes, reiterating pledges made in the Housing Strategy paper published on November 21.
He also pledged to reinvigorate ‘Right to Buy’ – something he described as one of the greatest social policies of all time – to enable families in social housing to buy their own homes at a discount of up to 50%.
In addition, Mr Osborne said the government wanted to remove the “lengthy delays and high costs” of the current planning system by placing new time limits on applications and new responsibilities for statutory consultees.
Additional measures published by the government yesterday said it would ensure there was a more effective mechanism for applicants to obtain an award of costs if there was an appeal against a planning application rejection where a statutory consultee has acted unreasonably.
These measures would be implemented from next summer, it said.
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