Homes fit for the nation

摘要

Throughout the General Election all the main parties put forward policies on housing. This suggested a long overdue shift in public policy, placing homes firmly back on to the political agenda. It was only a few decades ago that housing was regarded as such a cornerstone issue that all main parties openly competed, promising voters that they would deliver more homes than their political rivals. Sadly, since the late 1970s, we have seen a steady decline in new homes being built from a high back then of 300,000 new private and council homes a year to just over 2,000 new council houses in 2013. Of those, just 1,000 council houses were built in England. These alarming statistics are a salutary reminder that the under-supply of new council housing has not gone away. Our new research extensively explored the barriers to local councils building more homes.