Our comment on Theresa May's conservative party conference speech

Bjorn Howard, group CEO of Aster Group, said:

“Theresa May’s speech highlighted the government’s desire for housing associations and local authorities to play more active roles as developers. It also acknowledged that affordable housing must be part of the solution to our broken market alongside initiatives in the private sector like Help to Buy. This is welcome news to organisations like ours where we are focused on being efficient, surplus-generating businesses capable of delivering hundreds of new homes a year as well as being good, well-run landlords.

“The £2bn offered is a step in the right direction but will have a limited impact, delivering around 5,000 new homes a year. We will need much more investment and creativity to successfully tackle one of the biggest issues facing society. We have committed £1.5bn of our own capital into building new homes over the next seven years and that puts this new funding, which is intended for the whole sector, into perspective.”