PLRG hears from Future-planner of past housing funding chaos

PLRG was given a fascinating insight into the black hole of past UK housing policy by Stephen Hill, Director of Future Planners, at its last meeting on 24th November.

 Hill summed up the reason at the start of his talk: "Politicians of all parties genuinely want to do 'good' but do not understand the deep structural inequalities that arise from a flawed land market". He went on to quote (among others) JK Galbriath (1992) on "the visible larceny of commercial banks" in the area of lending for speculative property investment, as a major cause of this inequality; the Zacceus Trust (2005) in its "Memo to the PM on Unaffordable Housing" (Blair dismiised it) - and the current Housing Minister, Grant Shapps: "The housing market should be boring and predictable" (if only!)

The talk was rich with research and statistics and Hill has kindly allowed his slides to be made available to all, from the PLRG/Landvaluescape site.

See 2010 11 PRLG Land and Housing Markets sh 241110.ppt