25/05/2005

Ministers announce land for cheaper homes

More people than ever are being given the opportunity to own their own homes, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Chancellor Gordon Brown announced today.

Mr Prescott and Mr Brown were visiting homeowners in the Isokon building in Camden, London, a new restoration of a building whose residents formerly included Agatha Christie. The homeowners have purchased their homes with the help of a shared ownership scheme.

Mr Prescott and Mr Brown confirmed that English Partnerships (EP), the Government's regeneration agency, has purchased nearly 100 surplus NHS sites for the purpose of supplying more affordable homes. In addition to this, EP is reviewing more than 700 further vacant and surplus sites, including land owned by the Ministry of Defence and vacant public sector sites next to railway stations in London.

The Deputy Prime Minister also announced three further public sector sites for the Design for Manufacture competition, which challenges house builders to design high quality homes with a construction cost of around £60,000.

The sites, which are all ex-National Health Service (NHS) land, were announced as Renny Lodge, Newport Pagnell; Park Prewett, Basingstoke and Laybourne Grange, Maidstone. These sites will provide nearly 400 new homes, many for first time buyers. In all the scheme will provide nearly 1, 000 homes.

Mr Prescott said: "We want to ensure decent housing for everyone, whether they own or rent. We remain absolutely committed to the provision of decent social housing at an affordable rent. We have already announced a 50% increase in new social home building and have made excellent progress on achieving our decent homes target for 2.2m homes. Now, work has been completed or plans agreed to bring 82% of these homes up to standard. We must all work together to create sustainable communities."

(CD/SP)

Related UK National News Stories
Click here for the latest headlines.

30 January 2015
More Than 350 Councils To Receive New Homes Bonus Payments
Housing Minister, Brandon Lewis, has published the final allocations of New Homes Bonus Payments to over 350 councils in England. The total awarded to councils since the scheme's introduction is£3.4 billion, for delivering more than 700,000 new homes and conversions, and bringing over 100,000 empty homes back into use.
05 May 2004
Prescott claims 'decent' homes rise by one million
The number of council and housing association homes meeting the 'decent homes' standard has risen by one million, according to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Mr Prescott said that "up to £3 billion" would make another 170,000 homes "warm, weatherproof and more modern". Mr Prescott said that in 1997, 2.
10 July 2009
Scotland's Affordable Homes Hit 50 Year Low
Scotland has fewer social rented homes than it had 50 years ago, according to a report published today by housing and homelessness charity, Shelter Scotland.
22 August 2013
400,000 Homes With Planning Permission Still Waiting To Be Built
New research published today reveals there are still nearly 400,000 homes in England which have been given planning permission but haven't yet been built. The study, commissioned by the Local Government Association (LGA) and carried out by Glenigan, shows that there has been little progress made in reducing the bumper backlog over the past year.
15 August 2013
Housebuilding Market On The Rise
New figures released by the government show the housebuilding market has begun to show signs of recovery. The latest housebuilding start figures show there were 29,510 new homes started between April and June this year. This was 6% higher than the previous quarter and a third higher than the same time last year.