An ideological attack on private landowners

SIR – Last week, in an open letter to the Housing Secretary, campaign lobby groups put forward the case for radical reform of the land market, claiming that developers “wriggle out of commitments”.

This is a gross misrepresentation of a system which, while imperfect, provides communities with billions of pounds worth of infrastructure and affordable housing each year, as a by-product of private housing delivery. As the state has moved away from direct provision of affordable homes, private developers now deliver half of all new affordable homes, making them the largest funder of traditional social rented homes.

This new campaign seeks an entire rewriting of the system and wholesale erosion of private property rights. The creation of a far more adversarial process would deter landowners from willingly selling land, resulting in taxpayer-funded legal disputes, fewer sites coming forward and fewer new homes being delivered.

The campaigners have ignored the Government’s existing plans to increase the transparency of the negotiations which currently determine the contributions that developers make to the local community. These plans, although not without some challenges, are a more practical, pragmatic and workable approach than the radical theory advanced by this campaign.

Reflecting the gravity of the housing crisis, housing supply has increased by 74 per cent in four years, the fastest increase on record, to the kind of levels seen in the immediate postwar years. After a few years of progress in addressing decades of undersupply, we must not become complacent. Compromising the delivery of homes for families to buy because of an ideological opposition to private housebuilders and landowners would do nothing to tackle the housing crisis. Stewart Baseley Executive Chairman, Home Builders Federation London SE1