I write this the day after the Budget. In recent years there has been a trend by governments of all hues to announce what they wish headlines to be from the Budget in parliament, and leave measures that might be less popular to be uncovered from the detailed documentation by those who spend many an hour poring over the fine detail.
The headline news is about pensioners and pension pots! That aside, the Government is making positive attempts to deliver economic growth through trying to encourage accelerated housing delivery.
Measures to help buyers onto the property market are of course welcome, but the concern remains that the supply side is not being stimulated enough.
The £500m Builders Finance Fund is a step in the right direction, but loan finance alone is unlikely to be the answer.
What is clear is that districts' fortunes are particularly geared to the delivery of growth. More growth deals along the lines of the Greater Cambridge City Deal would no doubt be of greater assistance to areas primed and ready to deliver growth.
Both South Cambridgeshire and Kettering (‘the most typical town in England') are in the top 20 fastest growing local authorities – incidentally, 70% of those are districts.
The current economic conditions have resulted in a squeeze on CIL and S106 agreements, developer margins, and also community dividends. It takes political courage to continue promoting new homes locally in these circumstances.
We need these homes and their associated buoyant national tax receipts. Now is the time to be braver and faster with the key facilitative national infrastructure delivery.
The success of this Budget won't be judged by commentators even when there has been time to analyse the fine detail, rather it will be judged by the impact it has on the delivery of growth and whether that growth can be spread out from the geographic and sector hotspots in which it is currently clustered.
Incidentally, what price pensioners putting their pension pots into buy-to-let…?
David Cook is chief executive of Kettering BC and finance lead for the District Chief Executives' Network
