Radical proposals to curb land prices

CONTENTIOUS proposals for price controls on building land will be unveiled today with the publication of a long-awaited report on property rights.

The report will tell the Government there is nothing to stop it granting powers to local authorities to designate privately held land for housing and buy it up at dramatically less than market prices.

The move would make developers ‘use it or lose it’, forcing them to make swift use of residentially zoned land instead of hoarding it as a long-term investment, a practice which has been blamed for artificially inflating house prices by deliberately restricting supply.