Saturday, June 23, 2007
At last, some balance to the debate
OFT launches investigation into £20bn housebuilding industry
This article is one of the few that actually looks objectively at all sides of the debate. In particular, it doesn't go to the lowest common denominator and blame planners for all ills of society. In particular, it cites a recent Royal Town Planning Institute that suggested the country's top 10 housebuilders were sitting on 14,000 acres of land with planning permission, equivalent to 225,000 houses. That RTPI report also stated (not mentioned here) that enough land is allocated in local plans or designated as brownfield land to produce 1million homes. It is pretty obvious to even the most novice of economists, that house builders have no interest in flooding the market with 200,000 to 1million houses, because that would send prices and profits crashing to earth.
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