A call for a new integrated government housing strategy to address the housing crisis is the centre of a new report from the London School of Economics and commissioned by the Family Building Society.
Co-authored by Professor Tony Crook, Emeritus Professor of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield, the report highlights that the housing crisis has been brought about by a failure of Governments to create a coherent strategy for the sector and sets out key areas that need to be urgently fixed.
Along with forewords by Lord Heseltine and Lord Mandelson, the report calls on politicians, key national and local government departments, as well as the Bank of England, to cooperate on solving the UK’s current housing crisis.
Professor Crook said: “It is important to get some consistency between national policy on housing and regional and local policy on planning and land supply. Something that has not been easy but must be done better.”
The experts, Professor Crook and co-author Professor Christine Whitehead of the London School of Economics, say this is the simple way to produce a realistic, coherent and consistent policy,
“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,” they say.
A Road Map to a Coherent Housing Policy 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 targets for new build housing, advocates for a solution which would actually change very little. 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 report focuses on two key areas, the lack of importance placed on using existing housing stock more efficiently and introducing incentives to ‘rightsize’ their homes to lubricate the housing market.
While new build housing of all types is extremely important, at best it only accounts annually for around one per cent of the stock. What can bring larger and more immediate benefits, the experts say, is to use the 99 per cent of housing already in existence more efficiently.
If older households, who own more and bigger homes, had more of an incentive to ‘rightsize’ to free up homes for families and also reduce costs of care, this would help use existing stock more efficiently. The report recommends waiving Stamp Duty for the over 65s to provide such an incentive, helping the labour market and generating economic activity related to moving house – increasing tax revenue for the government.
Professors Crook and Whitehead added: “Without a more consistent and coherent approach housing conditions can only get worse. What we need is a strong government working across all government departments as well as private and public sector housing organisations with all following the same road map. Unless they do this, opportunities that can help frame and realise a positive future will not be grasped.”
Mark Bogard, Family Building Society Chief Executive, said: “Solving the housing crisis is not that hard if the government works with other stakeholders and pursues coherent policies introduced over a sensible timescale. And some things that would make a big difference could be done immediately.
“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”.