THE number of new homes being built has fallen to its lowest level since World War Two. Excluding the war years of 1940 – 46, less new homes were built in 2000 than in any year since 1924.
House Building Falls to Pre-War Levels
THE number of new homes being built has fallen to its lowest level since World War Two. Excluding the war years of 1940 46, less new homes were built in 2000 than in any year since 1924.
The collapse comes at the end of a period of exceptionally high household growth. Currently, 40,000 more new households are being formed annually than there are new homes to accommodate them.
Public house building has effectively ceased and private house building is expected to decline further due to planning restrictions.
Whilst the Governments principal housing policy initiative (PPG3), aimed at reducing greenfield development and increasing the use of brownfield land, is being hailed as a success, some local authorities are using the guidance to delay or scrap projects.
As the gap between supply and demand increases, house price inflation is expected to escalate further increasing the difficulty of the low and middle-paid to buy homes.
A spokesman for the House Builders Federation said: The cause is two-fold: investment in public housing has fallen steadily since the 1070s. At the same time greater planning restrictions on the use of land for private house building have also reduced the ability of developers to make up the shortfall.
The consequences are already being felt and are set to worsen. The rise in single-person households will exacerbate the problem. Government initiatives to help key workers buy homes of their own including the recently launched Starter Homes Initiative have
received a great deal of publicity. Unfortunately such mechanisms cannot tackle the fundamental problem of too many people chasing too few homes. Cash help being offered to teachers and other key workers, is a short term solution, which can only create further house-price inflation.
There is no quick fix to this. Only by allowing supply to match demand can the aim of a decent home for all be achieved. Failure to achieve this will exacerbate the number of people living in over-crowded or unsuitable accommodation.
Steve Lidgate, Chief Executive of Laing Homes, said the governments policy to put brown field sites before green field had not resulted in any easing of the planning process, in fact it had only made things worse.
We applaud the use of recycled land - 90 per cent of our development in southern England is on reusable sites - but the policy has to be accompanied by a determination to speed up the planning process.
Our evidence is that it is now taking 14 months from purchase of land to complete the first house. A couple of years ago by comparison it took just nine months. In a rising market housebuilders want to build more homes and the fact that we are not doing so is a clear indication that something is not working.
We are being prevented from making sufficient investment in housing especially in southern England and the knock on effect will be that we risk losing employment opportunities to Europe. People wont go where there are no homes and in the south the closeness to Europe means that is where our potential customers will go.