Chris Walker

On Wednesday morning, the finalists for the Wolfson Economics Prize will be announced. This year's Prize asked people to design a new garden city that is attractive, funded and locally popular. It is well recognised that we are not building enough homes. Indeed we have not been building enough homes for at least a generation. We built just over 110,000 homes in the latest year (completions) and yet around 300,000 homes a year, or 1.5 million by 2020, are needed. In a Populus poll published today, 72 per cent of people agreed there was a serious shortage of good housing. ​ Much of the blame for our housing shortage lies squarely with the planning system, often entwined with endemic local opposition to sequential development, or NIMBYism.

Labour’s decision to impose rent controls will do little to solve our housing problems. Rent controls are at best misguided and at worst could be counterproductive, longer term. Misguided because rents have not actually been rising that fast in recent years. ONS figures show that rents rose by only 1 per cent in England in the year to March (1.4 per cent in London), a real terms fall. Indeed, since the beginning of 2011 they have only 4 per cent. Misguided also because this doesn’t deal with the root problem; a lack of supply in the housing market. Put simply we need to build many more houses, for rent and home-ownership, than we are building currently, around double to match the growing demand.