It is no secret that for too many people the UK’s housing market is simply not working.
Having worked in the housing industry for the last 20 years, I’ve seen first hand how home ownership has slipped further out of reach for many hard-working people in this country.
Macroeconomic factors such as stagnating wages, inflation, hard to access mortgages, combined with a decline in the number of homes being constructed, has resulted in a housing market in dire needed of fundamental intervention. Supply is not keeping up with demand, driving up house prices at an unsustainable rate.
When I speak to my peers in the property sector, there is a clear consensus around what needs to be done. The UK’s housing stock needs to be expanded, urgently, with high-quality affordable homes. The challenge lies in how the public and private sector can cooperate to achieve this ambition.
We should harness the UK’s engineering research expertise and explore new construction methods. For example, modular housing, a type of prefabricated home produced in a factory, can be transported and installed on site, in half the time it takes to build a traditional house. Innovative approaches such as this offer the possibility to seriously rethink how we build houses, ensuring that the UK can make substantive progress towards rapidly increasing its housing stock.
Constructing new homes isn’t the only way we can address supply-side issues. At the Westcombe Group, we specialise in revitalising historic buildings that have fallen into disrepair and repurposing them into homes to meet the demands of tomorrow. We’ve converted old vacant schools, hospitals and army barracks into hundreds of homes. I’m a vocal advocate for the UK to take a more holistic approach to increasing housing stock. For some a dilapidated church has little value, but instead it should be viewed as a potential house for a family to call their home.
Underpinning all of this is the need for a comprehensive rethink of the UK’s planning system. It is ill-suited to meet the ever-growing demand. In Westcombe’s case, for instance, converting listed buildings always comes with immense challenges from competing interests within the system. Even logistical practicalities, such as arranging for cranes to be brought on site, prove to be challenging when having to consider maintaining the material and cultural integrity of a listed building and its surroundings. The risk of damaging historic buildings through intensive construction is significantly higher when compared to more modern builds. All of this makes the planning process considerably more stringent. This system, which is already congested with insufficient and inefficient resourcing, stifles our ability to create new homes through renovating disused properties.
The reality is that property developers are often at odds with the local authorities in which they operate. This needs to change. If we want to make affordable, quality housing accessible for all, we need to explore new ways of building homes, harness the potential of existing buildings, and fundamentally rethink our planning system.
l urge my peers in the property sector, councillors across the country and politicians in Westminster to come together and help make the housing market work for everyone.
