Moves To Help House Buyers

[Guest wrongmove]

Moves to help house buyers

"Attempts to ease the pain of beleaguered first-time buyers will intensify on Thursday with the launch of a centre that will press planners to make affordability a criterion for all new developments.

The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit is not the catchiest of names and the organisation has an unpronounceable acronym. But Stephen Nickell, the distinguished economics professor and its chairman, hopes the advice it will provide to local authorities and other public bodies overseeing housing developments will change the mindset of public sector planners.

The unit’s recommendations about the right housing mix for a particular area will not be binding. But given the growing concern about the social and economic implications of hundreds of thousands being priced out of home ownership, its advice might be hard to ignore. Covering England only – housing is a devolved matter – its advice will be publicly available so private developers will also have access to it.

The government-funded unit owes its creation to Kate Barker, Mr Nickell’s former colleague on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, where both helped to set interest rates before Mr Nickell left to head Nuffield College, Oxford.

Ms Barker’s 2004 review of housing supply found that during the last 30 years of the 20th century, housebuilding rates halved while demand for new homes increased by a third.

With the help of an econometric model developed by Reading University, the new unit, which is based near Southampton, will quantify the implications of housebuilding plans for supply, prices, demand and household formation..........."

[Guest AuntJess]

Moves to help house buyers

"Attempts to ease the pain of beleaguered first-time buyers will intensify on Thursday with the launch of a centre that will press planners to make affordability a criterion for all new developments.

The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit is not the catchiest of names and the organisation has an unpronounceable acronym. But Stephen Nickell, the distinguished economics professor and its chairman, hopes the advice it will provide to local authorities and other public bodies overseeing housing developments will change the mindset of public sector planners.

The unit's recommendations about the right housing mix for a particular area will not be binding. But given the growing concern about the social and economic implications of hundreds of thousands being priced out of home ownership, its advice might be hard to ignore. Covering England only – housing is a devolved matter – its advice will be publicly available so private developers will also have access to it.

The government-funded unit owes its creation to Kate Barker, Mr Nickell's former colleague on the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, where both helped to set interest rates before Mr Nickell left to head Nuffield College, Oxford.

Ms Barker's 2004 review of housing supply found that during the last 30 years of the 20th century, housebuilding rates halved while demand for new homes increased by a third.

With the help of an econometric model developed by Reading University, the new unit, which is based near Southampton, will quantify the implications of housebuilding plans for supply, prices, demand and household formation..........."

Let's hope it is not just another expensive, publicly-funded 'talkshop'. The emphasis these days seems to be on talking a good fight instead of getting cracking.