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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I can tell them what to do to solve the UK current housing crisis. It is very simple. Stop interfering in the private rental sector - and that means dramatically reducing regulation and not increasing it. Allow landlords and tenants to reach agreement between themselves about the terms and nature of the tenancy. That way, supply will increase, property standards will improve and rents will fall.
Solving the Housing Crisis is easy simply scrap everything they did to cause it.
Firstly distinguish the difference between Social Housing and Private Sector Housing as it used to be. They made a complete mess of Social Housing and couldn’t do anymore damage there so moved on to the Private Sector to meddle and ruin that and expect it to replace Social Housing they had ruined.
Wait until I reflect on what they did but I haven’t much time this morning. 2 Jags John 2004 housing Act, bringing in licensing Schemes starting
in 2006, followed by Shelter’s Deposit Scheme in 2007 based on a pack of lies when they alleged landlords withheld up to 45% of Deposits, later proved to be less than 2%. Shelter’s Private Member’s / Sarah Teaters Bill failed but immediately had back up plan in place with 2015 De-Regulation Act to Claim property damage to avoid eviction or something allegedly rent payment. Licensing Schemes costing thousands per property but not just once now I have done several 4 times getting more onerous & expensive each time. “How to Rent changed & amended 13 times since introduced but you must serve October ‘23 version or your letting business collapses” Right to Rent “ ICO registration, I don’t think any of this applies to Social Housing, Oh there’s lots more and I need to go out. THE RENTERS REFORM BILL by excuse for a Home Secretary Mr Gove removing Section 21 the very foundation of all PRS before which there wasn’t any, LSE are you listening or were you born. Section 24 making many purchases unviable at a time they were hammered with high interest rates driving out hundreds of thousands of Private Landlords who financed their investment with Private finance and burden the State , I’ll have to leave improvement, heat pump. EPC’s etc for now.
You will notice that there is no mention of consulting or even including landlords in this report!
Not only are we reviled, we are considered as insignificant in regards to the Housing Crisis!
Maybe it is time to give up
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