You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
We will no longer put up with a housing market that doesn't work
Housing associations can help deliver the affordable homes voters are demanding, says David Orr
Who would have thought it?
This was meant to be the Brexit election – the one issue that would dominate the whole campaign.
The prime minister asked the country to decide who is best equipped to craft a great deal as we leave the EU. It appears, though, that the country has other concerns.
Over the past weekend, the crisis of social care dominated the campaign.
Prior to that, there seems to me to have been more coverage and debate about housing than anything else. This isn’t what is meant to happen in elections. For decades housing drifted into election campaigns as an afterthought and then disappeared. This time it is insistent. This is a critical issue for the country. And people are determined to have their say.
“We want more homes to be built. We want them soon.”
The message now is crystal clear. We want more homes to be built. We want them soon. And we want them to be affordable for local people. We’re not very enthusiastic about executive mansions or expensive new apartment blocks where properties are bought for their investment value rather than places to live. We are, however, overwhelmingly supportive of good homes for ordinary people to live in.
Seventy-three per cent of us – across all ages, north and south, rural and urban – want affordable homes to be built. Whether we consider ourselves to be Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat supporters – or none of the above – we want new homes to be built. The message is loud and clear. We will no longer put up with a housing market that doesn’t work.
The good news is that our politicians, who are often slow to hear the public, have heard this.
All the parties want a huge increase in building and regenerating homes – for rent, for sale, for everyone. There is at last a sense of urgency and a political imperative for things to change.
“Housing associations are rising to the challenge.”
Even better is the news that housing associations are rising to the challenge. After a very difficult year where all future business plans had to be torn up and rewritten, our sector has still delivered very nearly the same number of homes in the past year as it did the previous year.
The ambition to deliver is clear in the news that new starts are rising rapidly – up 13% and now at a level where we can be confident that housing associations will build at least 250,000 new homes in the life of the next parliament. Nearly half of these homes will have no public funding. Indeed, 74% of all new social rented homes will be delivered without government funding. The rest will be homes for sale, for rent, for shared ownership – what the nation is demanding. Good quality, affordable homes for ordinary people.
If this is where we are now after low levels of investment by all governments for decades, imagine what we could do if the politicians make good on their manifesto promises. We absolutely can make 250,000 new homes a year a reality.
David Orr, chief executive, National Housing Federation
