One interesting outcome arising from the current housing market crash is that housing associations have been able to purchase land again in the borough for development and to provide much needed social housing. When the market was booming, local RSL's were priced out of the market, as national and local speculative developers, fought to get their hands on often poor and small parcels of land -often near busying roads or railway embankments. Often even these private developers were beaten in the race, by land speculators who would then 'flip' (something our MP's know all about) the plot of land to interested developers - making thousands, for doing very little, but adding to ever increasing property prices. Now the tables are turned! Land is selling again, as those who have land banked land find the value falling and can only release their tide up capital by selling at realistic prices. The only people currently able to buy land are housing associations. Labour's housing policy has been very dependent on section 106 agreements -private developers being forced by planning rules to make some social housing available as part of the development. As the housing market has crashed these added social housing units numbers have fallen off a cliff.
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