Homes for All: A Debt Free Solution to the Housing Crisis

In this innovative new paper, authors Miles Saltiel and Maxwell Marlow outline a fair way to build housing where people want to live, benefitting both local and future residents, and land-owners.

Under the proposed ‘Homes for All’ scheme, the government would use Compulsory Purchasing Orders (CPOs), a legal tool which can be used to compulsorily buy land or property to support development that is in the public interest, to purchase metropolitan green belt land. Shares would be issued to land owners, local residents, central and local Government, which can be traded on the stock market.

We estimate that over the next 15 years, we could build 3.8 million houses and raise £938 billion for the Exchequer.

Polling undertaken by JL Partners for the Adam Smith Institute to measure the popularity of the ‘Homes For All Policy’ found that:

• 43% of those polled supported the scheme if a proportion of the profits were given to the local community- regardless of whether development was on green belt land. Less than ⅓ opposed the scheme.

• Increasing the availability of affordable housing, investment in local government budgets and investment in infrastructure are the three most convincing arguments for the scheme according to those polled.

• The scheme is strongly supported (68%) or slightly supported (55%) by those who had originally answered that they would oppose building in the local area- as long as a proportion of the profits from development are given to the local community and residents. 

• Young people and renters are the most supportive of the scheme.