Union calls for council-led building

The study, carried out for the trade union by the Association for Public Service Excellence, calls on the government to adopt the approach to address the shortage of affordable housing.

It recommends that councils be given a duty to provide homes in the communities they serve, in partnership with other organisations where necessary. And it calls for the remaining barriers to be removed to allow councils to become significant housing providers.

The report acknowledges that the government has already taken steps to increase the involvement of councils in house building.

However Paul O’Brien, chief executive of APSE, said: ‘We would like to see a more substantial programme to enable a whole new generation of sustainable council housing in the future.’

The research found councils are capable of building a much greater volume of housing than they do at present, and the lack of skills in local authorities is not an ‘insurmountable barrier’.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said: ‘We want to see a million affordable homes built in the lifetime of the next Parliament with local authorities having a far bigger role in delivering those homes.

‘The APSE report shows that with the political will, council housing can deliver a significant number of the homes we need.’

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