A building society is calling upon politicians, government, the Bank of England and local councils and other bodies to cooperate on solving the UK’s current housing crisis.
The Family Building Society commissioned the London School of Economics to work on a set of independent reports exploring the contradictions and perverse incentives inherent in the current policy framework, and putting forward a set of suggestions for a more coherent, strategic approach.
The LSE’s work is now in the form of a report - A Roadmap to a Coherent Housing Policy - and has forewords by Conservative Lord Heseltine and Labour Lord Mandelson.
It says politicians, key national and local government departments, as well as the Bank of England, working together is the simple way to produce a realistic, coherent and consistent policy.
Authors Professor Christine Whitehead of the London School of Economics and University of Sheffield's Professor Anthony Crook say: “While we do need to build more homes of the right kind in the right places, the key is to optimise the use of the existing housing stock to help the elderly to downsize, growing families, and first-time buyers.
The study notes that there has been a seemingly unending stream of reports, over decades, saying that the housing system is broken. These usually stress a particular problem, often new build, and advocate a solution which would actually change, very little.
It also says that without an integrated strategy covering housing as a whole which includes providing housing of a safe and acceptable standard, individual policy solutions are likely to bring very limited success.
The authors say while new build of all types is obviously extremely important, and must be increased, at best it only accounts annually for around one per cent of the stock. What can bring larger and more immediate benefits is to use the 99 per cent of housing already in existence more efficiently.
They want Stamp Duty to be waived immediately for the over 65s, who own more and bigger homes, which would free up homes for families and reduce costs of care, local authorities to provide complete local plans showing where homes could be built, and an increase in funding for social housing. And moving generates economic activity which generates other revenue for the Government.
Mark Bogard, Family Building Society Chief Executive, says: “Solving the housing crisis is not that hard as our report shows".
“The Government’s latest long-term plan for housing does not address the issues highlighted in our report. Specifically, there is no mention of making the existing stock more efficient, creating more social rented housing, proper support for home ownership, creating a more effective and affordable rented sector or setting achievable targets and updating local plans to reach those targets.
“There has to be greater coherence, consistency and resilience in housing policy which is why we need a Minister of Housing as one of the great offices of state – not a repeat of the shambles of the last 25 years”.
You can see the full report here.
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