The head of timber frame manufacturer Benfield ATT has hit out at government housing policy.
Dr Michael Benfield, managing director of Benfield ATT, told an audience of town planners at a meeting of the Royal Town Planners’ Institute South West Region in Bath on December 12 that the amount of land available for housebuilding should be doubled and lending multiples reduced.
Dr Benfield claimed that in the 1950s and 1960s building societies would lend up to 2.75 times a person’s income, but now they were willing to advance six times a person’s income. This, together with low supply of land for housebuilding, fuelled high house price inflation, he said.
“The best Christmas present the government could give to home hunters is to make it possible for local planning authorities to double the amount of land available for housing and get control of mortgage lenders – immediately,” he added.
