You’re probably sick of hearing that Britain is in the midst of a housing crisis – we’ve all heard it said so many times. Over the last few months, Theresa May has been focusing on the topic; claiming that our housing market is ‘broken’, promising to take ‘personal charge’ of the problem. ‘We must get back into the business of building the good quality new homes for people who need them most,’ she said yesterday.
On the face of it, the latest figures released by the ONS seem positive. They show that housing supply in England saw a net increase of 217,350 last year; a 15% increase on the previous year’s numbers, and the highest figure for ten years. That still isn’t enough; it’s estimated that we would need to build 300,000 new homes every year in order to meet demand.
Even if we are building more, how much of what’s being built is actually ‘affordable’ to the younger generations who are desperately trying to get on the housing ladder? It’s all very well building huge blocks of luxury flats across London, but walk around these new blocks in the evening and you’ll see that so many of the windows are in complete darkness – property bought by foreign investors which the owners will probably never visit, let alone live in.
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