IS THAT TOGO?

摘要

Britain's housing crisis is one of the biggest social and economic challenges facing the country at the start of the 21st century. According to government figures 122,590 new homes were built in England last year, a rise of almost 25% on the previous year. But this is still well below the 300,000 figure some, including the RIBA, have estimated will need to be built every year in order to avoid a national shortfall of 2 million homes by 2020. Britain hasn't built 300,000 homes a year since the post-war years of the Macmillan Tory government of the fifties. The effects of this shortfall are clear to see particularly, though not exclusively, in London. High house prices, spiralling rents, constricted supply and accelerating personal debt are just some of the negative consequences and many of these problems are most acutely felt in the affordable housing sector. Homelessness charity Centrepoint estimates that England will need to build almost 1 million affordable homes over the next seven years to avoid the situation reaching crisis point. However just 42,830 were built last year, an annual decrease of 26% from 2012.