“We urgently need a new approach that places meeting genuine housing need at the heart of housing policy. To do that the government must urgently ramp up social housing delivery beyond what is currently planned, holding developers to account to deliver their fair share of social homes and getting councils building at scale once again.”
Build-up not trickle down – the case for need-led housing policy
We have long said that the government’s reliance on the housing market will fail to resolve the housing crisis. The market, dominated by large volime builders, who seek to maximise their returns and the dividends of their share-holders, will never build for social need.
In a new report Shelter says that the government is at a crossroads. Unless it breaks with its reliance on the private builders “it is doomed to repeat the failures of the past and leave pressing housing need unaddressed.”
“The government is now at a crossroads and must make a choice. It must decide on what outcome it principally wants to achieve, rather than be driven solely or primarily by hitting an overall homes target. The government has already proposed developer-friendly policies, for instance, to reduce affordable housing requirements in London and allow developers of sites of 10-49 homes nationally to make cash contributions rather than building social and affordable homes on site. But, as this paper shows, reforms such as these will likely fail on their own terms to significantly increase private supply or improve affordability while fewer social and affordable homes get built. If the government continues to pursue interventions designed to maximise private housing delivery even when these come at the expense of social housing, it is doomed to repeat the failures of the past and leave pressing housing need unaddressed.”
“…demand side interventions funnel government money into keeping house prices high and the benefits flow towards a narrow group of buyers, most of whom would likely have been able to buy anyway. Public money is far better spent on delivering social rent homes which directly improve affordability and meet a genuine housing need, rather than artificially stimulating demand for expensive new build properties.”
The report says that “We urgently need a new approach that places meeting genuine housing need at the heart of housing policy.” To do that “the government must urgently ramp up social housing delivery beyond what is currently planned, holding developers to account to deliver their fair share of social homes and getting councils building at scale once again.”
Ultimately, voters “will judge the government not on whether it has hit an arbitrary housing target, but on whether the government has materially reduced their, or their families’, housing costs or helped them find an affordable, suitable home.”
Shelter calls on the government to
- Set an overall target for the number of social rent homes the government wants to see delivered as part of the 1.5 million this parliament
- Properly resource council planning departments to ensure high quality local plan creation with ambitious affordable housing targets
- Require all large developments to include minimum 20% social rent housing
- Close viability loopholes, aided by the minimum social housing requirement
- Encourage compulsory purchasing of stalled sites and empty land to push housing developments forwards
- Support and resource councils to take advantage of recent reforms which allow the disapplication of ‘hope value’ when undertaking compulsory purchase
- Use master planning and public contracting more generally to support housing delivery and reduce reliance on the speculative development model
- Invest in social housing and clear the financial barriers to building, especially for local authorities
The report can read here
Labour Campaign for Council Housing 