The housing industry has reacted with disappointment to being omitted from the Treasury’s latest £50bn project stimulus package.
Chancellor George Osborne has launched a raft of fresh measures to get Britain building stalled major infrastructure projects.
The central scheme is a UK guarantee designed to underwrite financing for £40bn of stalled projects within the National Infrastructure Plan.
This will see the Government use its balance sheet to shoulder major project risk by offering guarantees for projects that are ready or nearly ready, with the first expected to be awarded in the autumn.
The Chancellor also said the Government would release £6bn in temporary loans to ensure around 30 public-private partnership projects can go ahead.
A third strand of the stimulus package will be a £5bn scheme to support British exporters by ensuring overseas buyers have the long-term funding they require.
Housing got little more than a cursory mention in the plan to offer loans to PPP schemes.
But according to Government sources a separate announcement is likely to follow "in the weeks to come".
Shadow chief treasury secretary Rachel Reeves said the proposals“will not reverse the damage done by two years of deep cuts to long-term projects like house building and the school building programme which have seen a collapse in the construction sector.”
Chartered Institute of Housing director of policy and practice Gavin Smart described the failure to include housing as a “missed opportunity".
"CIH will certainly be encouraging government to continue to look at the impact that guarantees for housing investment could have and making the case for the economic benefits.”
Mike Leonard, director of the Modern Masonry Alliance said: “Guarantees to fix a broken PFI system simply won't work. We were led to believe that we would receive the well overdue housing stimulus before the recess.
“Instead, it would seem the coalition have abdicated responsibility and left for the summer. We can now look forward to worsening conditions as the Olympics effectively shuts down construction in our busiest market.
“How many more jobs must we lose and how much manufacturing capacity will have to close before the government finally recognises that building public rented homes is the route to jobs and growth.”
