Lloyds boss calls for easier rules to fix Britain’s housing crisis
TENS OF thousands more homes should be built each year to ease the UK’s housing crisis, Lloyds boss Antonio Horta Osorio said last night – and the government should take the lead by building on under-used Ministry of Defence land.
The bank is setting up a new fund, starting with £50m, to help finance construction by smaller building companies.
And it wants the government to help free up land for development, using both its own land and by offering financial resources to councils to encourage them to approve more planning applications.
These measures could lead to another 60,000 new homes being built each year, the bank estimated, easing the supply crunch.
“Affordability in London is worse than its long-term average, leaving buyers vulnerable to the rate rises that will come in due course,” Horta Osorio told accountants’ group Icas.
“I would interpret this as meaning that UK households suffer from a huge detriment to their standard of living as a result of the cost of housing, compared to most other countries.”