End £30bn bank benefits, tax wealth like work, break the gas price link, launch a rooftop solar revolution and build 1.4m homes. Peoplenomics in five steps.
Dale Vince: 1.4m brownfield homes could spark a boom
New CEBR analysis for Babelfish finds 1.4m homes could be built on brownfield land, adding 0.9% to GDP a year for a decade. Half already have planning permission.
A massive housebuilding programme could kick-start an economic boom and provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, says campaigner Dale Vince.
Today the activist publishes independent analysis that proves the creation of 1.4 million homes on brownfield sites is an achievable goal – and could help Britain bounce back from two decades of austerity.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research has identified enough plots on land already earmarked by local government for housing-led development – and half of them even have planning permission.
Vince says there would be a "massive contribution" of 0.9% to GDP per year for ten years and if the plan had already gone ahead it could have nearly doubled UK GDP this year.
Andy Burnham's incoming Labour administration needs to be tough in taking on the "Big 5" housebuilders sitting on masses of unbuilt land – and it needs to bring in laws that severely punish those who drag their feet on a commitment to build.
Vince added: "This is a massive opportunity, half the 1.4million brownfield homes we found are already consented, the other half will be easily so – building them all won't just ease our chronic housing shortage it will supercharge our economy.
"Andy's instinct and ambition is right – here's the economic evidence that it's also very much a good business decision – for the whole nation."
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