The fallacy of the numbers game

Successive governments and the housebuilding lobby have constructed the housing crisis quite deliberately as a crisis of numbers – and even more narrowly as a lack of housing for sale or housing for first- time buyers. Yes, there is a shortage of new homes, and many first- time buyers are shut out from homeownership; however, the real problem is not the numbers, but the affordability, type, design, quality and location of new and existing homes.

From 2016 onwards, governments have had a target of building at least 300,000 new homes per year in England alone, almost doubling average annual delivery. They believe that if developers are able to build a lot more housing, prices will stabilise, more people will be able to get on the housing ladder and the worst of the housing crisis would effectively be over. However, progress on reaching this target is painfully slow. In 2019, a report by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (2019) said that the government was ‘way off track’ in achieving this target. However, the target itself is disingenuous. If new housing is not affordable, or is not in the right location for those who need it, or is of poor quality, or is unsuitable for the elderly, people with disabilities, young people, the homeless, or those with health problems, then government targets will not help.

The numbers game does not measure how far an increase in the number of new homes meets demand for new housing. Much new supply provided by developers makes no contribution whatsoever to meeting the housing needs of homebuyers or those in housing need. New building, up to 40 per cent in London in the recent boom, was of houses or flats at prices well out of reach of ordinary people. In an article entitled ‘Luxury towers wreck cities’ Jenkins (2018) cited a report on London housing by Savills, the surveying firm, which found that while 58 per cent of demand was for houses priced at below £450 per square foot, only 20– 25 per cent of new homes built in London were at this price. In Zones 1– 4 (in central and inner London), no new housing was at this price.