One of the promises Prime Minister David Cameron made in his Conference speech this week was to increase home ownership.
For decades, there have not been enough homes to meet the needs of our growing and ageing population. That is why the Government is putting in place a series of measures to get Britain building again and to get empty homes back into use.
The Government's large sites infrastructure programme is already accelerating house building across the country and will unlock the construction of over 200,000 houses by 2020. Ministers have also introduced the £1.8 billion Get Britain Building, Growing Places and Local Infrastructure Fund schemes, which are unlocking stalled housing sites. On top of this, enough formerly-used surplus public sector land has been identified to deliver an extra 250,000 new homes.
Since 2010, over 260,000 new affordable homes have been built. The Government has also announced that £38 billion of public and private investment will be made available over the next 5 years to build 275,000 extra affordable homes - the fastest rate of delivery for 20 years.
In addition, local authorities have received over £3.4 billion through the New Homes Bonus, helping to deliver over 700,000 homes since 2011. These funds have also helped to reduce the number of empty homes, which have fallen by 100,000 since the end of 2009.
All of this means that housing supply is now at its highest level since the end of the housing boom in 2008 and empty homes are at a 10-year low. There are now nearly 800,000 more homes in England than in 2009 and the number of first time buyers is at its highest level since 2007 and rising.
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Karen
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