JRF research shows government will fail to meet its target for delivering much needed new homes
New research launched today (17 November 2009) by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, shows the government is unlikely to meet its target of three million new homes by 2020. In order to reach this number, the Government has a target to build 240,000 homes every year – a rate not achieved at any point since the early 1990s.
The Housing and neighbourhoods monitor, produced for the JRF by a team of researchers from Manchester University, Glasgow University and Ulster University, analyses key housing and neighbourhood trends across the UK. The report highlights the following areas of concern:
- There are shortages in housing in many parts of the country particularly in southern Wales, large parts of southern and central England and Northern Ireland.
- Inequality between areas is a major concern. For example: house prices in South East and South West England are ten times average household incomes in many neighbourhoods.
- Housing supply and affordability will continue to be a problem due to the economic downturn and a projected increase in household numbers.
Complementing the report, the JRF has established a free website at www.hnm.org.uk that brings together a wide range of housing and neighbourhood trends for the whole of the UK for the first time. The site provides detailed Google Maps and a series of charts, enabling users to examine a wide range of information for their locality, such as housing supply, affordability, new build rates, educational attainment and economic activity.
Cecilia Wong, Professor at University of Manchester and Project Manager said today:
The new website provides a one-stop-shop of key information on housing and neighbourhood trends. It demonstrates clearly the varying degrees of inequality between different parts of the UK, in terms of housing and neighbourhood characteristics. It highlights how far policy goals are actually being achieved in practice and helps to pinpoint the key challenges for each of the four nations. What is clear is that there is an urgent need for more nuanced policy -making that takes better account of the characteristics of an area, especially how local housing markets function.
Katharine Knox programme manager at the JRF added:
The website will be an invaluable resource for local authority housing and planning officers, who want to compare neighbourhoods, understand the trends on housing supply, affordability and other dynamics in their area. It will support future planning and will help government develop better policies for the future.
Many of the issues highlighted by the Housing and Neighbourhood Monitor such as supply and demand and housing affordability are being examined in more depth by JRF's Housing Market Taskforce. Established in July to look into the root causes of instability in the housing market, it will provide a series of recommendations in late 2010.
