Who has ever been happy with 45%?
That sinking feeling - ever worsening performance on new home starts
In brilliant pre-election timing, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published new housing starts data for England today. The graph above shows what we feared - a marked decline in new starts, representing just 45% of the 300,000 homes we actually need on an annual basis.
Why should we be bothered? In simple terms, you cannot have happy, productive places and communities without properly housing people. Turley’s superb infographic below (thanks to Barny Evans) shows its contribution (agglomeration; big new towns) in creating productive places.
This is clearly supported by the additional environmental and social benefits of putting homes in the right places, as espoused by the oft-mentioned ‘twenty minute neighbourhood’ concept. Just to emphasise again, THIS IS NOT A SOCIALIST CONSPIRACY THEORY as advocated by some particularly demented and short of brain right-wing politicians.
It all links: productive places have a robust property supply, including new homes
Without wishing to labour the point (pardon the pun), this situation becomes even more acute when you consider the latest completions data. Data recently published by the Government here confirms just 31,670 completions in the first Quarter of this year - nearly 15% down on the same Quarter last year. This evergreen Housing supply and demand report beautifully explains why this is so deleterious for the nation.
So, what is our prescription for change? It’s exactly the same as we’ve pushing on this website for the past three years - planning and building quality new homes within or close to major employment centres, backed by robust community and social infrastructure. It’s nothing new - these are similar to the ‘Three Magnets’ principles that Letchworth was founded on at the turn of the 20th Century.
You shouldn’t expect a Bellona report without at least one reference to Letchworth
Addressing this is a huge task for any incoming Government. I hope the victors are up for the challenge after next Thursday.