Scheme cannot heal North-South divide

摘要

I am afraid I cannot share the housing minister's enthusiasm for his New Homes Bonus. While I welcome the ￡1bn to help kick-start the scheme, I have a genuine concern that the plan to hand over extra cash for every new home built can only succeed by diverting money from councils in the north of the country. This is because the scheme is based on the council tax value of the property. There-fore, it is self-evident that councils in the South will need to receive much more than the North, and the only way to fill the fund-ing gap is to take it from council budgets.