BPF comments on the Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2024

Commenting on the Liberal Democrats' 2024 General Election Manifesto, Melanie Leech CBE, Chief Executive of the BPF, said:

It is good to see the Liberal Democrats support an ambitious housing target. It taking that target to another level, however, it is important that they harness the ability of emerging sectors such as Build-to-Rent and older people’s housing to bring forward new housing supply, and to enable faster build out rates, especially in development such as new towns, which the party explicitly commits to.

While proposals like more financial support for social housing and brownfield development align with the BPF’s own manifesto, ‘Building our Future’, we have concerns that politicians of all hues think that the abolition of leasehold, and of no fault evictions, will work simply at the stroke of a pen, when both require investment in workable alternatives.

Giving local councils certainty through long term funding settlements would be welcome in terms of being able to plan for regeneration investment, and particularly so if that long term certainty were extended to social housing rent settlements which would in turn unlock pension fund investment into new social homes, as we call for in our manifesto"