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Watford mayor slams government policy on affordable housing

 Published on: 17th January 2018   |   By: Jason Allen   |   Category: Uncategorized

Watford mayor Dorothy Thornhill has criticised government policy on affordable housing in a speech in the House of Lords, arguing that the current rules let developers off the hook when it comes to building affordable homes.

New rules introduced in 2012 mean that developers can now argue that they don’t need to include affordable homes in a scheme if it makes it unprofitable for the developers.

The Government’s own figures show that 40,000 social homes were built for social rent in 2010, but since the rules came into place, it has now dropped to 5,500.

Elected Mayor Dorothy Thornhill said, ‘Despite our best efforts in Watford, we are being hamstrung by national rules that give too much power to developers and not enough control to local councils. It is becoming clear that this is a counterproductive and damaging measure, resulting in the loss of many thousands of homes for people stuck in temporary accommodation for far longer than I ever thought we would see on my watch, and with the only winners being landowners and housebuilders who are reporting record profits.

‘The policies we have set in  Watford to meet our local needs are being flouted purely because of this national policy. Government need to act now to close loopholes and massively improve the transparency of the process, given much needed powers back to local authorities.’

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