Why publish a report calling for measures to improve housing supply so soon after the Government publishes a Housing White Paper?
The Government’s proposals and the clear ambition for a million homes in five years provide a welcome focus in addressing one of the UK’s most malign infrastructure deficits – failing to provide the number of homes we need.
The Housing White Paper is a step in the right direction and will rightly claim headlines for the interventions it proposes: funding for more affordable homes; a planning system focused on building new homes rather than issuing planning permissions; a strengthened build to rent proposition; releases of public land; a renewed focus on the skills shortage and the potential offered by modern and offsite manufacturing.
All are needed. All are welcome.
But there is more to do and a longer time- frame is required to achieve it. The policies within the Housing White Paper are an excellent framework but we need the leadership, the investment and the mechanisms to deliver.
This report draws on the expertise of our members across all sections of the housing industry to take the long view and answer the question we set ourselves: what steps are needed to address supply over the next decade and beyond?
What are the structural changes required and how can we build the foundations for that success now? How can we avoid promoting one tenure to the detriment of another and sustain supply across the economic cycle?
Some of the measures we propose in this report can have an immediate impact. Others will require time to bring forward the step change in supply we need. Sustaining supply beyond a single Parliament requires us to plan for and negotiate the political and economic cycles.
We need a bold and coherent vision to generate confidence and encourage capacity, innovation and investment. In short, we need policies which future proof supply.
In addressing the problem we challenge not only this Government, but those who aspire to be successor administrations. Housing delivery involves resolving competing priorities; it is reliant on public and private interests being aligned and behaviours shaped to encourage supply. We need the sector and our political leaders to envision and plan for that now.
Everyone reading this report will know someone whose life chances are compromised in some way by a lack of housing options. The electoral and economic consequences of failing to act, build year by year as supply falls behind demand.
The measures proposed here can address that and provide a platform for delivery over the next 20 years.
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Contributors:
Chair: Stephen Teagle, Chief Executive, Partnerships and Regeneration, Galliford Try
Deputy Chair, The Housing Forum
Read the full report for practical insights and analysis.
You can download it below.