Budget 2014: George Osborne announces plans for 200,000 new homes

Osborne pledged '200,000 new homes for families' (Getty Images)

Plans for build-your-own homes, £500m of financing for small builders and new Garden Cities have been confirmed by George Osborne as part of his blueprint to ease the country's housing shortage with 200,000 new homes.

Osborne confirmed plans for a new garden city built at Ebbsfleet in Kent, new homes in Barking Riverside in east London and the regeneration of Brent Cross in north London. He said that although Labour announced house building in Ebbsfleet previously, only 300 houses were built. He said his plans will bring 150,000 new homes to the area.

He declared: “House building is up 23 per cent. But that’s not enough. Taken all together, the housing policies I announced will support over 200,000 new homes for families.“

He pledged £500m of finance to small house building firms and £150m for the ”right-to-build-your-own home“.

He said the government will publish a prospectus on the future of Garden Cities and said Ebbsfleet will be the first new Garden City in almost a hundred years.

He detailed that the equity loan element of the current Help to Buy scheme - which began a year ago - will now last until 2020 and the government’s mortgage interest scheme will be extended to 2016.

He also said some run-down inner-city and town housing estates will get extra support.