Ministers pave the way for the Housing White Paper by pre-announcing its content
As a wise man* once said there appears to be a pattern associated with major government policy announcements.
- First there is a week or two in which the content of the policy to be announced is widely trailed to the media;
- Then the release of the policy document itself; and
- Finally a large number of industry experts compare the two to see if the government has actually done what it said it would.
So far this week we have had four separate housing related announcements from DCLG.
- The location of the new garden villages was announced on January 2nd;
- The construction of starter homes on January 3rd;
- £7 billion of new funding for affordable housing was announced on January 5; and
- Also on January 5th, the Secretary of State gave an interview to Sky News on the importance of modular housing.
If the 'announcement cycle' is to hold true - the Housing White Paper is likely to be released at some point in the next couple of weeks.
Following which, you can expect to see a blog post from IM commenting on whether it lives up to the promises made this week!
* the wise man in question will remain unattributed, because I can no longer locate the LinkedIn post in which he said it and I am paraphrasing wildly.
In an interview with Sky News, Javid said that the white paper would contain measures to ensure that more land was released in the "right places" for development.
He said that the focus would be on building on brownfield land, rather than the green belt, which he described as "sacrosanct".
He told Sky News that modular homes would form a key plank of the proposals, adding that the "made-to-measure, ready-made, ready-to-go modern stylish homes" can be "an important part of what we can deliver in the UK".
Press reports yesterday suggested that Javid faced a potential backlash from Tory MPs over the white paper.
But he told Sky News that he was determined to face down opposition.”
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