I recently attended a meeting organised by York Outer MP Julian Sturdy, where selected local property professionals and councillors were able meet Nick Boles MP, who is the Planning Minister.

One issue on the agenda was housing supply and I presented the Minister with a paper I had written entitled A Solution To The Housing Supply Problem.

My proposal helps to address a major issue which will restrict future growth in the volume of homes built.

This is the limited capacity of the private housebuilding sector, which is constrained by a lack of capital caused by the prohibitive cost of finance and the growing trend of the large housebuilders to pay all their future profits in dividends.

If the imposition of affordable (social) housing through S106 on private housebuilders was abolished, the capacity for more market homes would be increased.

Housing Associations would then be made responsible for building all social housing, using spare capacity in the general construction sector.

I believe there are compelling economic advantages to my suggestion, which outweigh the ideological argument for mixed-tenure communities. The need for more houses is more important than the requirements of a utopian social engineering exercise.

I hope that the minister will agree with me.

Paul S Cordock, Durlston Drive, Strensall, York.

 

• This year’s Budget has announced plans for a £3bn investment in infrastructure projects year on year from 2015 to 2020.

For every £1 invested in construction, £2.84 is returned to the economy, so we are delighted that the Chancellor has prioritised construction to return growth and kick-start the economy.

Additionally, schemes dealing with home buying will indirectly affect the house building industry - increasing demand for housing and providing jobs for builders.

House building is only one small aspect of the construction industry, and we would encourage the Government to take a step back and look at additional measures to boost other pockets of the industry.

The Construction4Growth initiative, which 69 employers in Yorkshire & the Humber have signed up to, has been developed by CITB to encourage investment in “shovel-ready” projects to get unemployed construction workers back on site, to grow the economy in the near future.

The Single Local Growth Fund, designed to support transport, housing and skills – originally proposed by Lord Heseltine and recognised in yesterday’s budget – highlights the importance of local economies as engines for growth and will reach into the tens of billions once established.

It is through this fund that York’s local council and the York and North Yorkshire LEP will be given greater spending control, and infrastructure projects such as the proposed York Potash Pipeline will flourish and hopefully become more common place.

Steve Housden, Sector Strategy Manager, CITB, Long Acre, London.