The nation is facing a housing crisis. Dealing with the crisis is vital if we are to ensure that all residents are able to benefit from economic growth.
Key messages
- The nation is facing a housing crisis. Dealing with the crisis is vital if we are to ensure that all residents are able to benefit from economic growth. Everyone needs a home that is affordable, good quality and is well-supported by local services and infrastructure. Councils must be part of the solution to providing more homes in the right places.
- The country needs to build 250,000 homes a year to keep up with demand. The last time housebuilding reached this level, in the 1970s, local government built around 40 per cent of them. Bold new action is needed to solve our housing crisis and a renaissance in house building by councils must be at the heart of this.
- Ahead of the Autumn Budget we are calling on the Government to re-establish self-financing from 2020, lift the housing borrowing cap, and to provide a sustainable long term financial framework for councils to invest in new homes, of all tenures, through Housing Revenue Accounts (HRA).
- In most areas the rise in rents and house prices above earnings makes housing less affordable for a large and growing proportion of the population. The LGA has found that one in seven private renters spends over half their income on rent.
- Councils are working with communities to approve nine in ten planning applications. A new wave of affordable housing must now be built, linked to a new definition of affordable housing as costing 30 per cent of household income or less.
- The Government must act now to end rising homelessness by lifting the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) freeze and exempting temporary accommodation from the overall benefit cap.
Download the full briefing
Debate on the availability and affordability of housing, House of Lords, Thursday 12 October 2017