Theresa May tears up Cameron’s housing scheme with plans for more build-to-rent homes

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Theresa May has torn up David Cameron’s scheme to turn “generation rent” into “generation buy”

In the housing white paper to be published on Tuesday, the Government will put measures to tackle the high cost of renting at the heart of its plan to fix the broken housing market. Planning rules will be amended so councils can plan more long-term build-to-rent homes and a consultation will be launched to allow developers to offer more affordable rental homes.

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New steps will also be taken to ensure longer-term tenancies are widely available in private schemes to provide families with more stability.

The scheme will signal a dramatic shift in housing policy from the one pursued by Mr Cameron, who declared he wanted the Tories to be the party of home ownership.

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Planning rules will be amended so councils can plan more long-term build-to-rent homes Prime Minister Theresa May Fri, December 9, 2016

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Prime Minister Theresa May is joined by children nominated by UK charities and a local school choir to switch on the Downing Street Christmas tree lights. December 8 2016.

As part of his last speech as prime minister to the Conservative Party conference in October 2015, Mr Cameron pledged to turn “generation rent” into “generation buy” with controversial plans to allow developers to sell rather than rent newly-built affordable homes.

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As part of the proposals, which were drawn up to help him hit his pledge to build 200,000 more low-cost homes for first-time buyers by 2020, the definition of affordable housing was also changed to include so-called starter homes.

These were offered for sale to people under 40 at a discount of up to 20 per cent off the normal price.

Housing charities immediately accused Mr Cameron of diverting cash away from much-needed new homes for rent.

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The scheme will signal a dramatic shift in housing policy from the one pursued by Mr Cameron

The proportion of people living in private rented homes has doubled since 2000.

The average couple in the private rented sector pay their landlord roughly half their salary each month and 2.2 million working households with below average incomes spend more than a third on housing.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said: “We are determined to make housing more affordable and offer much more choice. We understand people are living longer in private rented accommodation, which is why we are fixing this broken housing market so all types of home are more affordable.”

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