Despite the fears surrounding funding for development, building new homes seems to be the topic on everyone's lips at the minute. First off, Boris Johnson came under fire for his claims about delivering 50,000 affordable homes in London by 2012. And then David Cameron's top advisers briefed developers on plans to increase the supply of new homes to 450,000 a year.
This record-breaking figure from the prime minister's office has raised eyebrows amongst housing professionals. Many claim the number of new homes needed to meet demand is actually around 250,000, much lower than the PM's target. Others have pointed out that to build 450,000 new homes, planning rules would have to change dramatically, speeding up the building process and bring costs down.
Backing this up, housing minister Grant Shapps suggested recently that developers may be allowed to convert vacant offices into new homes without the need for planning permission, to meet growing demand. However in our poll on the topic, the majority of you felt that removing the need for planning permission was wrong, and shouldn't be considered, even with housing lists as long as they are. Others are turning to retro-fit as the answer to bring existing stock up to standard and improve energy efficiency.
So just what can councils and housing associations do to meet these ambitious targets and deliver enough affordable homes? And what funding is available to help them do it? Our panel will be online from 12pm to 3pm on Monday 18 April but comments are open for your questions and observations now.
Dr Anthony Lee is a senior director at chartered surveyors BNP Paribas Real Estate, leading one of the industry's longest established affordable housing consultancy teams
Edward Gilder is the land and planning manager for Badger Building in East Anglia. Edward negotiates land deals and obtains necessary permissions for development to take place
Jim Vine is head of UK housing policy and practice at the Building and Social Housing Foundation
Joe Docherty is executive director, enterprise and development at Home Group. Joe is responsible for all Home Group regeneration programmes across the UK
Colette Mckune is City West Housing Trust's director of asset management. Colette is leading City West's £235 million improvement programme using the latest retro-fitting techniques
Darran Smith is product manager at Alpha Heating Innovation who supply boiler systems to social and public sector builds
Tom Symons is senior researcher at the New Local Government Network. His research fields are primarily capital investment and local economic development, housing policy and local government finance
Rob Pratt is project director in The Hyde Group's major project team. His job involves working on regeneration projects and he is currently helping to put together Hyde's bid for HCA funding
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