Affordable Homes Statistics Argument
2 polar opposite
press releases have been reported recently.
On one side the Housing Minister Grant Shapps refers to the number of
affordable houses being built as having undergone a “rapid and dramatic
increase”. On the other hand the Shadow
Housing Minister Jack Dromey states that there has been a “disastrous collapse”
in the number of affordable houses.
This appears to stem
from the fact that statistics can be interpreted in several ways and often
are. In November of 2011 Labour stated
that there had been a “97% fall in affordable new housing” in the first 6
months of 2011-2012. This was due to the
fact that during that period only 429 new affordable homes were built, obviously
this is a worrying figure and caused concern about the future of housing. However in the following 6 months 15,269
affordable houses were built. If the
previous figure of 429 is compared to this, this could be reported as being a
3,500% increase in the construction of affordable housing!! This shows how difficult it is to use sets of
statistics to give a realistic overview of a situation.
The large fluctuation between these sets of
figures was actually caused by a transition period from the previous policy for
Labour’s affordable housing programme in which central Government money was
used for funding to the new system in
which public money is used to encourage developers to make their own
investments in affordable housing. Furthermore
the different position of the Housing Minister and the Shadow Housing Minister
seems to have developed because the
Government believes that the contracts currently being signed will deliver
170,000 new affordable homes over the next couple of years, however the Shadow
Housing Minister’s position is that these projections are impossible to
achieve.
Due to the lengthy
timescale involved in implementing any new policies and new procedures it will
not be possible to see which projections are correct for a number of years.
Hopefully for the sake of the housing market we can look to the housing
minister’s view of matters.
If you or a member
of your family are looking to purchase or sell a property and you would like a
quotation from one of our specialised Conveyancing Solicitors, please do not
hesitate to contact us on 0800 100 2741 or visit our website at www.forsterdean.co.uk. You can also
follow us on twitter (@ForsterDeanLimited) and find Forster Dean Solicitors on
Facebook.
Published
18th June 2012
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