In a statement this morning Richard Boyd Barrett, slammed the Government for yet another plan that “failed to deliver the radical reset needed to actually solve the housing crisis.”
“The new plan, the 4th in 15 years, once again is relying primarily on the private sector to deliver much needed housing.
“The plan has a target of 300,000 homes over 6 years, 50,000 per year, while the central bank last year recommended 68,000 per year.
“This target is inadequate but, considering the last plan only delivered 38,000 over the last 4 years, it is also unlikely to be met.
“Unlike previous plans the target is not per annum so the government can avoid accusations of not meeting their targets
“Affordable homes do not have a precise target in the plan and once again by relying on the private sector to deliver many of these homes, they will not be actually affordable for those in need.
“The plan for social housing is 72,000 over the life of the plan while there are currently 120,000 on housing waiting lists, never mind the fact that there will be tens of thousands of new housing applicants going on these lists during the lifetime of the plan.
“The plan, like all previous plans, gives 'goodies to the private sector' to encourage their delivery of homes. This strategy has only led to spiralling homelessness, evictions, rent increases and ever increasing social housing waiting lists. It has never delivered the affordability that is needed."
Richard Boyd Barrett said: “The Housing Commission report last year recommended a 'radical reset' in housing policy to tackle the emergency. This new plan is not it!
“What we need is to break the reliance on the private sector and bring the housing land bank into public ownership.
“We need a strict use it or lose it approach to this land. If a developer is not actively commencing their planning permission, that land should be immediately CPO’d to deliver social and affordable housing.
“The Vacant Homes Grants need to be accompanied by affordability commitments. If a home owner is receiving a vacant home grant the resulting home needs to be available to the Local Authority for either social or affordable.
“The radical reset in housing policy that is actually needed is breaking the dependency on the for profit sector to deliver the majority of the housing we need.
“It means taking the land bank into public ownership to get rid of hoarding and speculation.
“It means developing a state construction company to give the state its own capacity to deliver the social and genuinely affordable housing on the scale needed and training the apprentices and construction professionals needed.
“It would also require resetting rents to make them affordable and a complete ban on no fault evictions.
“We need more aggressive measures to end the scandal of vacant and derelict properties and bring them back into use for social and affordable housing.”