The chancellor has announced the Barker recommendation on property windfall tax is to be subject to a year-long review. The government also accepted the Barker recommendations on Real Estate Investment Trusts.

Forum Response: The Local Government Information Unit

Dennis Reed, LGIU chief executive, said: "Kate Barker's study on housing supply has pointed to a need for more social housing. The Barker Review has provided a menu with prices. The government's response is a recipe without ingredients.

"The government accepts some of Barker's recommendations and is launching yet another review and consultation process on others. However, public spending plans for the next three years indicate that social housing investment will not rise to the challenge. Whatever changes to the planning system are intended, they will amount to little if the investment is not there. Ministers have already been backtracking on the 2010 Decent Homes target for renovating council housing. "

Forum Response: British Property Federation

Ian Fletcher, BPF director, Commercial and Residential, said: "The report presses most of the right buttons without necessarily going into the devil of the detail.  Most of what is proposed is sensible, without being radical, and strikes the right balance between those in need of housing and the protection of our environment. The proposed additional spending on infrastructure would be a huge help in getting more houses built more quickly, if appropriate funds are made available.

"So far as the planning system is concerned the Review is offering fairness not favours, with some helpful proposals which strike a good balance between the need to take better account taken of the economic and social impact of development and to stop the minutiae of developments getting bogged down in local politics. The proposed planning gain supplement is something we will want to scrutinise more closely and in particular how it will affect brownfield development and interact with current planning obligations, which already require developers to make significant contributions to transport, affordable housing and other social infrastructure."

Forum Response: Council of Mortgage Lenders

Peter Williams, deputy director general, said:

"The recommendations will take time to digest. At first sight, it is disappointing that the report seems ambivalent about the role of home-ownership within the overall UK housing market. But the themes of making the housing market more flexible, and the reference to the blurring of the boundaries between the market and social sectors, do chime with the CML's desire to see a much more flexible tenure structure to meet the needs of people who cannot afford full home-ownership.

"Of course, the primary problem – delivering a far higher supply of housing – is highly political, and it will take some time to implement change in practice. In the meantime, as the report highlights, there is a large swathe of people who cannot afford to become home-owners. Some targeted help for this group need not be expensive in terms of public expenditure and would provide at least a stop-gap policy response until the increased supply of housing begins to flow through."

Forum Response: Country Land and Business Association

Mark Hudson, president of the CLA said: "Housing problems in the countryside have once again been forgotten in the national debate on housing revived today in Gordon Brown's budget speech.

 "The countryside houses 23 per cent of the population yet the Barker Report, published today and referred to by the Chancellor, makes no specific mention of this.

"The creation of new large settlements is not appropriate for the countryside, where existing settlements need to be allowed to grow in the incremental way they always have, in and around villages. This is how the children of existing residents and people taking up essential jobs in the countryside can be housed.

"We are particularly concerned with Kate Barker's suggestion that more use could be made of compulsory purchase powers. The report calls for a more market led system, but the confiscation of people's land is the antithesis of the market.

"In rural areas landowners are willing to supply land for housing necessary to meet local needs, but as the CLA report 'Housing the Rural Economy' showed, they are frustrated by an out-of-date and unresponsive planning system." 

Forum Response: The Woodland Trust

A spokesperson for the Woodland Trust said:"Despite claiming to have announced a range of measures protecting the environment, the Chancellor has done little positive in this budget to improve the environmental situation. Accepting the recommendations of the "Barker review" on housing supply, which proposes extensive new house building does not indicate a sympathetic approach to environmental protection. Ancient woodland is already under extreme pressure from development and increasing house building is only going to add to the problem.

"Sustainable development involves protecting the environment effectively from development to ensure it is there for future generations, not sustaining housing development on green fields and ancient woods. "

Forum Response: English Partnerships

David Higgins chief executive said:“We welcome this first class account of the issues which surround the lack of supply and the responsiveness of housing in the UK today. It is a very comprehensive report which will be extremely useful to inform debate and discussion on this fundamental issue in the future.