Housing: Serviced Plots

Lord Best Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord has put his finger on a difficulty, which is access to the mortgage market. We are well aware of the difficulty and we are working with building societies and with a couple of banks—Virgin Money does good work in this area and the Co-operative is also interested. We are certainly very open to encouraging access to finance via the co-operative movement and the Co-operative Bank. The noble Lord is right that it is an important area and one where we need to focus our attention.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, we need this alternative stream of new homes because otherwise we are totally reliant on a handful of very large volume housebuilders which consistently let us down in terms of quantity, quality, affordability and design. This is a really important new stream of extra housing, but we are awaiting guidance from the Government for local authorities on their planning obligations. This is a little overdue. Will the Minister tell us when we might expect to see it published?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord. He was the noble Lord, as so often, who piloted the very important legislation I referred to through this House. We expect the guidance he is referring to early in the new year.