Housing Crisis, ‘Scattergun’ Policies to Blame

UK politicians have failed to produce a framework for solving the housing crisis, and its scattergun approach to reducing the housing deficit has led to some “abysmal failures”.

In its 58-page white paper, Solving the UK’s Housing Shortage, specialist property finance marketplace Brickflow has called on the government and politicians across all parties to work together to develop a proper framework for addressing the housing crisis.

It has also set out a 10-stage plan as the blueprint for that framework. It also urged the government “crucially, stop this revolving door of housing ministers”.

The report said: “[Labour leader] Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to build the ‘next generation’ of new towns and 1.5mn new homes as part of ‘a decade of renewal under Labour’.

Ahead of what will be a key political battleground in the lead up to the election, the recommendations in our ‘Solving the UK’s Housing Shortage’ white paper, will finally give politicians a comprehensive framework for addressing the housing crisis, which the government itself has failed to produce.

Brickflow founder and chief executive Ian Humphreys, said:

“The housing crisis in this country is a huge white elephant; we all know it exists and everyone appears keen to address it, yet no one has a clear strategy on how to do so.

“This is not surprising, given the mountain of government rhetoric, professing to identify the key issues and suggest solutions, yet often without consideration for the impact these may have on other parts of the housebuilding chain.”

Potted history

The report revealed that while 4.75mn homes are needed across the UK (4.3mn in England), only 0.2 per cent of land in England is vacant to build on.

It said: “Since July this year, 58 local authorities have suspended their development plans, which illustrates why such a framework is so vital to getting Britain building again.”

In 2004 Kate Barker wrote her Review of housing in the UK, in which the lack of new building was highlighted. At the time, she called for 200,000 homes to be built a year.

But there was still a shortage in supply of housing even in 2022, as reported by FTAdviser.

The market has not yet recovered from the effects of the credit crisis in 2008 to 2009 and again in 2009 to 2010, when there were significant year-on-year slumps in houses built.

As Brickflow’s white paper indicated, the House of Lords’s Built Environment Committee’s meeting housing demand report 2021/22, said one in four people will be over 65 by 2050, up from 19 per cent in 2019.