Labour Party will need P2P lenders to support its housebuilding plans
The Labour Party will need private lenders including peer-to-peer platforms to act as “the conduit between the state and actors on the ground” to execute its housebuilding plans, Invest & Fund has said.
The opposition party’s annual conference is taking place this week, with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves proposing planning reforms for the housebuilding sector.
These include a revision of rules about construction on green belt land, and more affordable housing.
Additionally, Labour leader Keir Starmer has said that his party would set a target of 1.5 million new homes over five years.
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P2P development lender Invest & Fund welcomed a debate about building on the green belt, highlighting the fact that abandoned agricultural infrastructure sites, car parks and disused industrial sheds all exist inside the zone.
However, it said that the reform would be a “tough sell” to the public.
With regard to boosting affordable housing obligations, Invest & Fund warned that this could be challenging for smaller developers, where “schemes are often stretched far tighter than people realise”.
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If the Labour Party is serious about bolstering housing supply, there will need to be “a significant level of financial support” from the government to go alongside the private sector, Invest & Fund said.
“What those schemes and projects look like is yet to be seen,” the firm added. “Still, there will need to be strong alliances with private sector lending and vehicles such as P2P to be the conduit between the state and actors on the ground; one of the lessons an incoming party will learn quickly is the key to success is effective distribution via knowledgeable private sector counterparties who have relationships already in place with end users, to streamline the process and not to end this blog with further sloganeering, keep Britain building.”
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