Over the last few months, at meetings or via the website, EHN members have been alerted to the possible risks to New Homes Bonus implied by the government's desire to introduce a "development benefit" that would offer financial rewards to people living near new housing developments.
Given that rewarding people for accepting development was one of the key justifications for the New Homes Bonus, the Development Benefit proposal looked like an alternative - one that might be cheaper and which would perhaps not be subject to the same criticisms levelled at NHB by the likes of the Audit Commission or Commons Committees. In short, it looked like a risk to the work done by empty homes practitioners: if the reward no longer went to the local authority but directly to local residents, it would undermining one of the important justifications for empty homes work in the age of austerity, namely that it produces New Homes Bonus.
This particular risk seems to have been averted for now, however. DCLG has announced (26th March 2015) that it is not going to proceed with the pilots. The foot of the web-page for the Development Benefit consultation explains:
Only 3 expressions of interest were submitted for this pilot. However, the initial attitudinal research to support the pilots has revealed some interesting insights into the opposition to development. We are looking into how opposition to development transmits into the planning system and the potential role of financial incentives in changing this.
We have decided not to proceed with pilots at this time.