The housing pressure group Shelter has welcomed the housing plans launched by Ming Campbell earlier this week. The plans would provide a million new affordable homes by 2010.

Shelter says:

“We are delighted that the Liberal Democrats have now committed to build the extra social rented homes these families desperately need.

“Ming Campbell has thrown down the gauntlet to Gordon Brown and David Cameron to commit to our campaign to build more social homes and ensure that decisive action is taken to help those suffering at the sharp end of Britain’s housing crisis.”

Today, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ming Campbell said Britain needed a revolution in housing. He unveiled proposals for building one million new socially rented, affordable and low cost homes by 2020.

Delivering the Chamberlain Lecture at a Joseph Rowntree Foundation conference in Birmingham, Ming Campbell launched a withering attack on Labour’s record on housing. He accused the Government of ‘ghettoising’ housing, leaving poor and vulnerable people living on large ‘sink estates’ which offered little hope or opportunity. He said it was a national disgrace that one million children still lived in overcrowded accommodation and 130,000 children lived in temporary housing.

Ming said that innovative and imaginative solutions were needed to deliver this revolution.

Liberal Democrat proposals include:

• Building 100,000 new affordable, social and low cost homes each year
• Devolving and reforming the planning system to make decisions faster and more effective for all parties
• Introducing equity mortgages to ensure that affordable housing is built and maintained for the benefit of generations of buyers
• Building smaller social housing developments which are integrated with private housing
• Cutting VAT on housing renovations and repairs

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