Chancellor’s move to build homes directly is very welcome but won’t address the scale of the challenge
Last week’s autumn statement was one of the last big economic events of this government before the end of the Parliament. It was an opportunity to announce new policy developments and with an election around the corner, a time to signal policy direction for the longer term.
Our starting point is that the scale of house building activity across the country needs to be significantly increased. The problems with our current housing market have been decades in the making and obviously will not be solved overnight. But with a shortage of new housing development of at least 100,000 homes a year, it is a time to signal bold new initiatives that can meet this challenge.
As things currently stand, there are some positive signs but there are also indications that in some areas at least it is not so good. NHBC figures report that housing completions were strong overall between August-October 2014, with a year-on-year jump in registrations of 20% in the private sector (to 14,000 homes). More disappointingly the public sector saw a 7% fall, to just 2,800 new dwellings. Across the country, some regions are doing well such as London, but many others are not so good. Although there is positive news, certainly for the private sector completions, there remains