Land-value capture by local authorities could help boost UK housebuilding without any dramatic increases in government spending, writes Daniel Bentley in The Telegraph. The suggested scheme is based on the principle that farmland is valued at a fraction of residential construction land. The government could buy farmland, re-designate it as residential and profit from the resultant jump in value, enabling authorities to sell off portions of the bought land to developers to raise cash for their own house-building and infrastructure projects. •
Land-value capture by local authorities could help boost UK housebuilding without any dramatic increases in government spending, writes Daniel Bentley in The Telegraph. The suggested scheme is based on the principle that farmland is valued at a fraction of residential construction land. The government could buy farmland, re-designate it as residential and profit from the resultant jump in value, enabling authorities to sell off portions of the bought land to developers to raise cash for their own house-building and infrastructure projects. To do so, however, would require changes to law that obliges authorities to pay residential values for land purchased compulsorily.