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Government unveils plan to directly commission homes on publicly-owned land

The Government is to run a pilot that will see it directly commission new affordable homes on publicly-owned land.

The five pilot sites are:

  • Connaught Barracks in Dover;
  • Northstowe in Cambridgeshire;
  • Lower Graylingwell in Chichester;
  • Daedelus on Waterfront in Gosport;
  • Old Oak Common in north west London.

The four sites outside London could see up to 13,000 homes built, ministers said. They added that the schemes would provide opportunities to smaller building firms which cannot take on large projects.

The Government has also unveiled a £1.2bn starter home fund to prepare brownfield sites for new homes. It said this would fast-track the creation of at least 30,000 new starter homes and up to 30,000 market homes on 500 new sites by 2020.

The Government has previously committed to delivering 200,000 starter homes over the next five years.

Prime Minister David Cameron said: “Today’s package signals a huge shift in government policy. Nothing like this has been done on this scale in three decades – government rolling its sleeves up and directly getting homes built.

“Backed up with a further £1.2bn to get homes built on brownfield sites, it shows we will do everything we can to get Britain building and let more people have the security that comes with a home of their own.”

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