The residential property market has needed a shake-up for decades, and although the housing White Paper, published earlier this month, is a welcome step in the right direction, it fails to provide landlords with the support needed to expand their investments and supply the private rented sector with the additional homes urgently needed, according to CB Solutions Ltd.

Whilst the company welcomes the government’s efforts to increase housing supply in the private rented sector, it insists that this cannot be sufficiently achieved if the government continues to punish buy-to-let landlords.

“The government’s white paper is a step in the right direction, but there seems to be a lack of understanding around what’s genuinely needed,” said Steve Reice, CEO, CB Solutions Ltd.

He continued: “It’s not about helping one group and demonising another. Landlords, tenants and agents are all valuable pieces within the housing jigsaw. A good example of this is the social sector. Social housing stock is at an all time low, and as a result, providers now need to access stock via the private sector. Despite this clear and growing reliance on private landlords, the government has still heavily penalised this group across the last two budgets.

“A sustained building programme is important from a stock basis, but if the foundations aren’t solid then you will achieve little. You need to provide landlords, agent and tenants with the tools they need to help them unite and work honestly together.”

CB Solutions Ltd has just launched a new tenancy management and communication website, rent-hub, which is designed to provide a secure, protected platform focused on the requirements of tenancy partners across social, private, commercial and student housing.

The main aim of the new site is to help landlords, tenants and agents create a better working relationship to ensure a smooth tenancy.

Reice added: “rent-hub is just the first part of our engagement with the sector; over the coming months we will be launching additional high profile initiatives designed to provide further support.

“Good quality housing is a fundamental right and it’s unacceptable that in 2017 we still have such a disconnected sector.

“It is our ambition to work at ground level to ensure the UK has a connected housing sector with a single platform working in the best interests of all parties.”