None of the parties present a realistic plan to build the homes the most unaffordable cities need.
Housing is now a political priority. This is what the polls tell us, and it is what the contents pages of the manifestos tell us. High profile campaigns such as Homes for Britain and numerous front page splashes show a different scale of coverage compared with what was needed in 2010.
But the real consensus among commentators have been that the policies offered so far have missed the mark. See for example Oliver Kamm’s analysis in today’s Times:
“The Tories’ help-to-buy scheme is hard to beat as a hare-brained scheme to deal with the housing crisis. Yet Ed Miliband has given it his best shot by proposing rent controls”.
There is little confidence that what is being offered will raise building rates. Instead it’s ‘more of the same’.
Both the Tories and Labour have described home ownership as a fundamental British value and are seeking to support first-time buyers. As such, the demand side interventions on offer are specific and backed with costed spending. They also all serve a similar purpose: to help those who are priced out of home ownership onto the housing ladder. Although politically sound, fuelling demand in this way without increasing supply will continue to raise prices and make it less affordable.
On the (failing) supply side, the politicians have remained vague. The parties have acknowledged the importance of building more but it has remained merely a numbers game: 200,000 homes (Labour) 300,000 (Liberal Democrat) or ‘many’ (Conservatives) each year. However, this is where policy intervention is needed to make significant changes in land supply and investment, rather than oblique and unmet targets.
One interesting development has been from the Liberal Democrats, who have proposed a ‘brain belt’ of garden cities alongside a new railway line between Oxford and Cambridge – two of the least affordable cities in the UK. This is an important move towards acknowledging ‘place’ in the housing crisis. As our research has shown, the country’s most successful cities are the least affordable. However, relying on locations ‘where there is local support’ risks lengthening the time it takes to build and will most likely result in a struggle for suitable sites. This form of localism is unhelpfully pursued by all the major parties’ housing plans.
The acid test for housing policy in this election should be whether it will increase house-building sufficiently in the least affordable – and most economically successful – cities in the country. By choosing not to make specific commitments on boosting land supply or direct investment for new housing in these places, politicians have clearly calculated that we have yet to reach the tipping point in public opinion where the need for more affordable homes outweighs the traditional ‘win’ of increasing house prices. The wait for a realistic plan to build the number of new homes that the UK needs, in the places that require them most, continues.
To find out more about what the different parties have pledged on housing and planning, read our General Election 2015 Manifestos Briefing here.
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