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LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group said at least 60,000 new homes need to be built in Britain everyyear above the current level of supply to ease the country'shousing shortage.
Lloyds, Britain's biggest retail bank and home lender, saidon Tuesday it will set up a 50 million pounds ($81 million)equity fund next year for smaller house builders to helpincrease supply. The bank said it could expand the funding andpotentially work with investment partners or government schemes.
Lloyds Chief Executive Antonio Horta Osorio will say in aspeech later on Tuesday that a public policy goal is needed toincrease housing supply. He will say an increase of at least60,000 new homes each year is needed, over and above currentnumbers, in order to help tackle the supply challenge.
Other options to improve housing supply and affordabilityinclude freeing up more public land for housing projects, ormaking construction on former industrial or commercial sitesmore economically viable, he will say.
"There is no silver bullet to increasing housing supply. Itwill take coordinated effort across a range of policy measures,sustained over a decade or more. This is a generationalchallenge," Horta Osorio will say.(1 US dollar = 0.6188 British pound) (Reporting by Steve Slater, editing by Louise Heavens)
