Call for creation of people’s land bank in UK for affordable new homes

The British Government should create a people’s land bank and use the land to build genuinely affordable homes, it is claimed.

The call from think tank the New Economics Foundation is due to its latest research showing that while NHS land is being sold to private developers, four out of five of the planned homes for sale will be unaffordable to nurses.

It also shows that only one in 10 of the planned homes will be for genuinely affordable social rent and the average expected sale price for the new homes is 10 times the annual salary of a nurse.

It concludes that a better way to provide genuinely affordable housing is to create a ring fenced, national stock of publicly owned land as the current process is not only failing to produce affordable homes, it is exacerbating the affordability crisis across the UK.

The research involved a comprehensive analysis of the 59 NHS sites that have been sold so far under the Government’s public land sale programme. It finds that, of the planned homes for sale, four out of five will be unaffordable to a nurse on an average salary. And where they could afford the mortgage repayments, a nurse would have to save for an average of 53 years to afford the deposit.

Only one in 10 of the homes built on NHS land will be for genuinely affordable social rent. The average expected sale price for the new homes, based on area estimates, is £315,279. This is 10 times the annual salary of a nurse.

The research also shows instances where the developers who make profits from sold public land are sometimes able to avoid affordable housing requirements altogether. For example, in Stoke-on-Trent, Keep Moat is building 201 homes on the former site of Bucknall Hospital, but not a single property will be classed as affordable. Instead, the company is contributing just £209,000 towards affordable housing.

In Dorset, Holton Homes are building zero affordable homes on the site of a former residential care home, with no financial contribution towards affordable housing and in West Yorkshire, Persimmon Homes was required to build 30% affordable housing on the site of Pontefract General Infirmary, but after pleading ‘financial inviability’ this was reduced to just 6%.

The New Economics Foundation recommends that instead of the sale of public land to private developers, the Government should establish a people’s land bank, using surplus public sites to start building the millions of genuinely affordable homes that the UK needs.

The people’s land bank would be a ring fenced, national stock of publicly owned land that would be exclusively earmarked for the development of genuinely affordable housing built in direct partnership with communities and in response to community need.

‘These local NHS sites are community assets and they should be used to deliver community benefits. Public land, which is owned by all of us, is being flogged off to developers so that they can make massive profits, while producing a tiny amount of affordable housing. The UK is facing an enormous housing crisis, and the Government is making it worse,’ said Joe Beswick, housing lead at the New Economics Foundation.

‘Every day, people are finding it harder and harder to find a decent, affordable place to live. Surplus public land could be used to start to solve this problem. Instead developers are earning record profits and paying chief executive officer’s £100 million plus bonuses on the back of luxury properties built on NHS land,’ he claimed.

‘By selling off public land to the highest bidder, the Government is missing a chance to start solving the housing crisis. Surplus public land should be put into a people’s land bank, a national stock of land that earmarked for genuinely affordable housing. The Government should stop using national assets to line the pockets of developers, and instead put public land to public use,’ he added.