News
Bethan McKernan
Oct 07, 2015
TL;DR: Hull, Barrow-in-Furness, Southport and that's about it
David Cameron is set to announce that the government is on a "national crusade" to get more homes built during his speech at the Conservative conference in Manchester on Wednesday.
But housing charity Shelter has crunched the numbers, and the prime minister's planned 'starter homes' are not as affordable as they sound.
At up to £450,000 a pop, only people earning more than £50,000 a year will be able to afford to buy one of the 200,000 proposed new first homes, and your salary has to be more than £77,000 in London.
On the new minimum wage of £9 an hour in 2020, only homes in two per cent of England's councils would be within budget, Shelter says:
The charity calculated that the new scheme will be unaffordable for average income households in six out of ten English council areas, which means generation rent will be renting for quite a while longer.
Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, told The Independent that the new scheme would only benefit those already able to buy a home:
You don't solve an affordability crisis by getting rid of the few affordable homes we're building, yet that's exactly what this policy will do.
There's nothing wrong with helping people onto the property ladder, but the government has to invest in genuinely affordable homes to buy and rent for all of those on ordinary incomes who are bearing the brunt of this crisis.
Last year the Conservative party pledged to build 100,000 new homes a year, and doubled the promise to 200,000 a year by 2020 in May's election manifesto.
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