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Shapps pledges housing will be centre stage

Wednesday, 1 February 2012 12:16 PM

Housing minister Grant Shapps has reaffirmed his commitment to get Britain building again with a pledge to stop leaving policies and initiatives gathering dust on Whitehall shelves.

In a speech to councils and the housing sector, the minister said the prime minister and the government were determined to put housing centre stage and were making tangible progress.

He highlighted three areas of progress in particular:

- Identifying enough government land to build 80,000 homes and working with organisations like Royal Mail and the BBC to find enough land for 100,000 homes by 2015.

- The NewBuy Guarantee for people buying newly-built homes with a lower deposit.

- Devolving control of council housing from Whitehall by letting local authorities keep the rents they collect and re-invest the money in homes.

Shapps said: "The pattern of the past has been to produce endless policies and initiatives that simply gather dust on Whitehall shelves and lead to inaction and inertia.

"But with the prime minister putting housing centre stage on the road to economic recovery, I am determined that we shall not repeat these mistakes of the past."

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