General Election 2024

Bjorn Howard, Group CEO at Aster Group, said:

“It’s clear our country faces an acute housing shortage. We need a greater range of homes delivered at pace. It’s clear this new Labour government recognises the importance of building more new affordable and social rent homes, and quickly. We remain committed to helping inform the forecasted changes the new government plans to inject to make building more homes possible, especially around the planning system.

“For our sector to have effective longer-term financial plans in place which meet the evolving needs of our customers, we need certainty and stability in areas like social rents. This allows us to focus on delivering safe, secure and comfortable homes and good customer service in a sustainable way.

“Shared ownership should continue to play an important role in boosting the availability of affordable housing and providing a route to homeownership. Likewise, Community Land Trusts will be important in adding a local voice to development programmes and making sure the homes we build are right for our communities.

“Housing associations have long been a crucial partner in enacting governments’ ambitions for housing – the same will certainly be true for an administration seeking to achieve the largest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation.”