Introduction

Since the 1970s, commentators have been worried about housing supply shortages in England when land availability was first raised in policy documents. As noted in Chapter 6, concerns about why housing supply in England is so unresponsive came to a head when the Treasury sponsored the Barker Review in the early 2000s. The report stressed the lack of economic indicators used by local authorities when determining land supply through the planning system but also noted many other factors adversely affecting new supply. Barker suggested that more than 200,000 dwellings per annum would be necessary to accommodate the growth in household numbers and to limit house price increases in line with affordability across Europe. Since then there have been many different numbers suggested, mainly in the 200,000– 250,000 range but both the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and the Chancellor have pointed to the need for 300,000 per annum if affordability is to be significantly improved.

What is clear is that private sector completions in England have rarely exceeded 150,000 per annum since the early 1970s. Indeed, in the last 45 years, they only went above 150,000 in the three years from 1987 to 1989, then to be followed by a major macroeconomic and housing market crisis. In the early 2000s there was a similar pattern, but levels of output only achieved more than 150,000 in 2007 before the financial crisis and the deep recession in the housing market, from which we have not yet fully recovered. In 2018, private completions were only 134,500 and on the basis of already falling starts may well peak in 2019. These figures point to two main issues: levels of output are not very responsive on the upswing but respond more rapidly to sudden reductions in demand.

Over the years there has been a vast amount of discussion around the relative importance of different barriers to increasing delivery of new build homes. The main blame is directed at the planning system as a whole and the way that it restricts rather than supports new supply.