A £2bn fund to boost housebuilding could be used by the government to offer guarantees to developers that it will step in to take on properties that they are unable to sell. The Conservative party unveiled plans on Monday for £5bn worth of funding to support housebuilding, £2bn of which was designed to provide 15,000 new homes on public land by 2020. “The reason that you’ve seen the number of small builders fall by 80% in the past 25 years is that building has become a very risky business. The remaining £3bn of the government’s £5bn investment pledge will go towards a housebuilding fund, which will also be administered by the HCA. It will provide £1bn of loan funding to small builders and others creating small numbers of homes, as well as long-term funding for infrastructure which the government said would “unlock a pipeline of up to 200,000 homes over the longer term”.

Source: The Guardian October 06, 2016 18:05 UTC