"I know that this process is viable as during my time as the chairman of Brentwood Council’s Asset Committee I implemented it successfully on a local level."
He believes the biggest issue is big house builders who have a 'stranglehold on the supply of land and housing', and proposes the introduction of Help to Build via the UK Housing PLC.
There is already a Formal Asset Register to aid in identifying publicly owned land assets at a local and national level – of which the government currently control 180,000.
Quirk says that by introducing secondary legislation, this could be turned into an up to date database which local authorities and government then use and commit to a plan to build using those assets.
This would bring the launch of the first publicly owned housing developer – UK Housing PLC.
Under the proposals, it would be run as a private enterprise with the government and taxpayer as its shareholders but with an experienced C-suite from the private sector to run it properly and profitably.
The land supply would come through the plan to build database and the entity itself would decide what housing is needed in each area by type, tenure and geography over a five-year plan.
This would allow them to build, and profit, with the full developed land value repaid to the local authority in question on completion of the sale.
Quirk added that the risk is mitigated as the land is already owned by the government and it would also allow them to be in control of shared ownership delivery and the targets that need to be met.
Founder and CEO of Emoov, Russell Quirk, commented: “I know that this process is viable as during my time as the chairman of Brentwood Council’s Asset Committee I implemented it successfully on a local level. I identified the land, incepted development plans, gained the planning permission and tendered to sell.
We had control of how many of the properties were affordable and I planned to retain some of the dwellings under council control for the rental sector for continued revenue – although the majority of my other less forward-thinking colleagues at the time voted against it.
Help to Build doesn’t replace the big house builders, they are free to peddle their wares as they see fit and do so currently. But we cannot allow the issue of supply to rest solely with them and their engineered restriction of housing stock. We have the land, the resource and a model that facilitates the delivery while ensuring our councils don’t lose out financially. We have the solution, we just need to implement it.”
