Builders call for £2bn clearing house boost

House builders have called for a boost to the government’s £200m clearing house fund set up to buy unwanted homes to turn into social housing.

The Home Builders Federation (HBF) wants the scheme expanded to provide £2bn, which could take most unwanted homes off the market.

The money already allocated for the scheme was front-loaded onto the budget of the Homes and Communities Agency, which has £8.4bn to spend over three years.

Liberal Democrat spokeswoman Sarah Teather told the Financial Times £200m was a “pitifully small amount of funding to deal with a major crisis”.

The clearing house has bought 1,531 homes, according to Department for Communities and Local Government statistics.

HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley said that £2bn could buy most of the approximately 15,000 unwanted homes on the market.