Responding to today’s announcement that the South East England Regional Assembly has launched an investigation into the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area which is holding up development in the region, Stewart Baseley, Executive Chairman of the Home Builders Federation, says:
“While we welcome the South East England Regional Assembly’s involvement in co-ordinating this investigation, the fact remains that development could be held up for over two years while a permanent solution is sought.
“A delay of this magnitude threatens the viability of many home building and associated businesses based in the Thames Basin - with clear consequences for many hundreds of jobs. It also puts at risk 40,000 new homes over the next ten years – including 12,000 units of affordable housing - in a region facing the country’s worst affordability problems outside London.
“We need the Government to take urgent authoritative action to unlock the freezes on new housing while the process of finding a mutually agreeable longer term solution is undertaken.”
Notes for Editors
1) The Home Builders Federation (HBF) is the principal trade federation for private sector home builders and voice of the home building industry in England and Wales. The HBF’s 300 member firms account for over 80% of all new homes built in England and Wales in any one year, and include companies of all sizes, ranging from multi-national, household names through regionally based businesses to small local companies: www.hbf.co.uk
2) South East England Regional Assembly launches Thames Heaths investigation, SEERA, 11 April 2006:
3) DEFRA figures state that the SPA is home to 264 male nightjars (8% of UK population), 149 pairs of woodlark (10% of UK population) and 445 pairs of Darford Warbler (28% of UK population):
4) IPPR’s Commission on Sustainable Development in the South East, 2005 states that “after London, the South East is Britain’s least affordable region for first time buyers, with a significant proportion of the region’s population facing affordability problems”
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