By Tim Foreman, Managing Director of Land and New Homes, LRG:

The additional funding for affordable housing is very welcome especially as the demand for affordable housing, and cost of building it, continues to increase.

However, delivery of affordable housing would benefit from addressing a wider range of types and tenures than the government is currently providing for.  Specifically, shared ownership plays a very important role in getting people on to the housing ladder and yet seems to have been largely ignored by this government. 

The popularity of shared ownership is increasing, partly because today’s first-time buyers are paying almost a third more to get on the property ladder than they were five years ago. Furthermore, in the last decade the number of private renters moving into home ownership fell by 23%. The government’s current stance on housing affordability – not least the increases in Stamp Duty and the freezing of Lifetime ISAs – has resulted in policies that are making it even harder for first time buyers to enter the market. Shared ownership deserves the same level of government-assisted marketing as benefited the now defunct Help to Buy scheme and it seems detrimental to the whole ‘growth agenda’ that the government is ignoring this important tenure.

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