黑洞社区

Housebuilders have hit back at Ed Miliband鈥檚 latest attack on developers who hoard land, claiming that housebuilders 鈥渄o not land bank鈥�.

In Labour鈥檚 latest party political broadcast (see below), Ed Miliband sets out his vision for boosting housebuilding, including a target to be building as many homes as necessary to meet demand within the next 10 years

But he also launched a fresh attack on developers who he claimed were hoarding land.

He said: 鈥淥ur ten-year aim for the county is to build as many homes as the country needs - now we haven鈥檛 done that for 50 years so that is incredibly ambitious.

鈥淲e鈥檝e got to break the power of the big developers, because they鈥檙e sitting on hundreds of thousands of places for homes with planning permission and they鈥檙e not building because they鈥檙e waiting for it to accumulate in value

鈥淎nd we鈥檙e going to get tough with them and say you can鈥檛 just sit on the land, government鈥檚 got to make them do their bit.鈥�

But the Home Builders Federation (HBF) hit back at the land hoarding claims, saying independent studies, including most recently by the Office of Fair Trading, all had concluded that housebuilders 鈥渄o not land bank鈥�.

The HBF added that a recent survey of the larger housebuilders that it carried out found that only 4% of plots with an implementable planning permissions were on sites where production had not yet started.

In a statement the HBF said: 鈥淗ousebuilders completely reject the accusation that they hoard land that is capable of providing new homes .

鈥淭he country faces a housing crisis that will take a collective effort to solve.

鈥淚t is unhelpful when political rhetoric centres on myths when the real challenge is how we increase housing supply.

鈥淚f we are to meet the new ambitious targets all parties are agreed are required, politicians need to work with the house building industry to address the constraints on housing supply.鈥�