Pink zones ‘are the key to tackling housing crisis’

MINISTERS SHOULD create ‘pink zones’ to speed up the delivery of new homes, according to a leading thinktank.

Pink zones would be areas where planning red tape is minimised with the agreement of local people to make it easier to get development under way.

The Centre for Policy Studies suggests local communities would agree to be part of pink zone developments in return for financial incentives and the promise of new roads, shops, leisure facilities and other infrastructure.

Economist Keith Boyfield, one of the report’s authors, said: “Pink zones could trigger institutional funding for investment in new housing – institutions such as life insurance companies, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and charitable foundations.

“Ultimately pink zones would create more and better homes for people throughout the country and tackle the poverty of aspiration which typifies much residential construction in this country.

“People would be happier and the country would be richer.”

The CPS report argues that involving communities at an early stage and offering them wider benefits for agreeing to new housing would overcome the objections that often slow the pace of developments.

It says Britain needs to avoid the mistakes of post-war housing development which delivered poor quality homes in new communities lacking proper amenities.

PICTURE: PA. PRESCRIPTION: Prime Minister David Cameron giving his first major speech since the General Election, at a GP surgery in the West Midlands at which he set out his vision for the NHS.