Local council pension funds should be used to pay for house-building projects to kick-start the housing market, according to a report by The Future Homes Commission.
Building homes and communities Britain needs is the result of a commission that was set up in September 2011 by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) to conduct an independent inquiry into the quality of newly built housing.
It has recommended a kick-start from an independent £10-billion Local Housing Development Fund, financed and owned by local authority pension funds, with their combined assets of more than £180 billion.
The report said: “The largest 15 local authority pension funds could pool 15% of their assets in an independently-managed Local Housing Development Fund to invest in developing sustainable, mixed-tenure communities.
“The Local Government Association should work with their members to identify whether this would work, and how to go about doing it.”