Cain Hoy chief executive Jonathan Goldstein has said that the shock general election result is a message to the Conservative party that the UK is not a “one issue country” and that the next government must take the issue of providing truly affordable housing more seriously.
“For the past year the 48% have been ignored and the country has been driven down a road to a hard Brexit that I don’t think anybody actually voted for… I am invigorated this morning. Britain has had a wake-up call. People will not be driven down a road, we are not a one-issue country and the political class need to listen and learn from the messages that people give them across the country,” he said.
Gavin Barwell lost his Croydon Central seat, meaning that the country will have a new housing minister, the sixth in seven years. Goldstein said that the new minister in post must act urgently and respond to the message from the electorate.
“We have to invest in more housing, we have to provide housing for people at affordable levels and simplify the planning system to enable housing to be built aggressively and delivered for people. It is not acceptable to have society where people don’t’ have a place to live and the number of homeless is going up. That is the message that Jeremy Corbyn went around the country espousing and that has resonated. I hope the Conservative party have listened to that message, and it is important the new housing minister works very quickly with the relevant mayors and local authorities to put these processes into place.”
However, Goldstein admitted that a hung parliament and the prospect of another general election in the short to medium term could bring about more uncertainty for the property industry and a short-term drop-off in activity.
“This is the third shock, in a year, with Brexit and Trump and we have seen that after an initial shock stability occurs. But I think it is impossible to think a period of uncertainty with no majority, from which it seems difficult to govern, that there will not be an election again in the next 12 to 18 months and that will result in another quiet period. For investors though that often brings opportunity.”
■ Bookmark www.egi.co.uk/news/election2017 to find out the property fallout after this morning’s hung parliament announcement.
