Local government shares the collective national ambition to build one million new homes. Housebuilding is currently well below the levels required for an efficient and fully functioning housing market.
Key messages
Councils need to be able to ensure genuinely affordable homes continue to be built for rent and sale across the whole country for future generations. This is the best way to reduce waiting lists and housing benefit, keep rents low and help more people get on the housing ladder. Affordable rented homes are crucial for enabling those who want to buy their own property to save money towards a deposit.
In most areas the rise in house prices above earnings makes housing less affordable for a large and growing proportion of the population. As highlighted in our submission to the Government's consultation on the Autumn Statement, councils should be given the flexibility to deliver homes of various tenures to meet the needs of their communities, including the young who want to access the housing market in their local area.1
Local government shares the collective national ambition to build one million new homes. Housebuilding is currently well below the levels required for an efficient and fully functioning housing market. Around 139,000 new homes were built in the year to June 2016,2 whilst estimates of the housing need of people across the country indicate that we need to be building up to 250,000 homes a year. 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.