FURTHER details of the Government’s plans to build 250,000 homes in the South East by 2016 were announced last week.
An interim document from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Creating Sustainable Communities: Making it Happen, revealed the four growth areas — the Thames Gateway, Milton Keynes-South Midlands, London- Stansted-Cambridge and Ashford — where these developments will take place.
The investment will require public, private and voluntary sectors to work together and the Government expects to raise £2 billion from the private sector for the Thames Gateway project.
It also plans to use the increase in land values arising from the growth to help to meet the cost of the projects and should allow local authorities to retain some of the increased business rate revenues.
The document proposes that a quarter of all new housing are “affordable”. But Keith Hill, the Housing Minister, stated that it would be left to local authorities to decide on the proportion.
Advertisement
This may clash, however, with the target set by Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, of 50 per cent affordable housing in the Thames Gateway area, says Housing Today (August 1).
Further concerns are raised by London First, the business lobby group. In Planning (August 1), a spokesman for the organisation asks: “Where are the key transport infrastructure improvements, in particular the Thames Gateway crossings?”
Housing Today suggests that these fears are unfounded since the Transport Secretary announced £600 million of road improvements, along with the go-ahead of Crossrail, the rail service that will run across the capital.
But in New Start (August 1), Paul de Zylva, campaign coordinator at Friends of the Earth, argues that concentration on high-speed main routes suggests that the Government is expecting people to commute long distances, something that is, he says, “wishful thinking”.
Advertisement
Read the report at www.odpm.gov.uk