Over the past month, the Nationwide team have been up and down the UK – from Aberdeen, to Bournemouth, attending each of the main political party conferences.
Across the packed panel discussions, lively meetings and headline speeches we heard a clear message: the housing crisis is deepening. Following the conferences, we also heard news of a possible reduction in London’s affordability ‘targets’ on new developments surface as the capital’s completions numbers have plummeted.
Outside of conference talk on planning, subsidies and viability, the human cost was also laid bare. A record high of 169,000 children now living in temporary accommodation; over 1.3m households in England are stuck on social housing waiting lists; and 1 in 20 households in England are living with significant levels of damp. The impact of unaffordable, inaccessible and poor-quality homes on peoples’ lives, health, wellbeing, jobs, education and opportunities is immense.
But amidst the urgency, there is hope. Across the conferences, we were struck by the sheer number of organisations, ideas, policy initiatives and people trying to make a difference in this space.
One pertinent message came up again and again: if the current housing market could solve the housing crisis, it would have already. As detailed in our cross-party and cross sector ‘Homes for All’ report launched last year, the country needs a clear, bold direction on what well-functioning housing looks like, and a long-term plan to get us there. While we await the Government’s upcoming housing strategy, our ‘Homes for All’ long-term approach feels more relevant than ever. Piecemeal policy initiatives often have unintended consequences, like making rents and home-buying even more unaffordable for many.
What we heard across the conferences:
Encouragingly, there was strong agreement on several key priorities:
- We need more high-quality homes across all tenures. This will only be delivered from a more diverse housing market where SME builders and developers and community-led homes can thrive.
- Simplifying the planning process is important but it’s not the whole story – in fact, over one million homes have planning permission, but haven’t been built. The focus needs to be on delivery.
- Delivery requires a skilled workforce and we have a growing skills gap across the construction industry – already there are over 140,000 vacancies in the sector, hampering growth. The long-term Housing Strategy will need a long-term plan for skills development to match.
- Quality matters – a lot. We need to build homes for the future that are sustainable, safe and that create the communities where people want to live. Again, SME developers and community-led homes often lead the way in delivering this.
- The long-awaited reforms to renters’ rights are needed, popular with voters and will start to rebalance the system with better quality rented homes and more security for renters. Research and evidence will be vital to underpin future further reforms to make a private rental sector that works for everyone.
Polling shows homes matter to people, for example, More In Common’s polling on housing shows a clear majority of people think that housing should be seen as part of our national infrastructure. We need a long-term, holistic, stable approach to addressing the housing crisis that goes beyond political cycles – and hope the national housing strategy will move us in this direction.
A big thank you
We want to give a big thank you and shout out to the brilliant people and organisations who shared their experiences at our events and inspired us with their work to provide affordable homes and strengthen communities across the country:
- From the Lib Dem conference: Craig White from Agile Homes, Alison White from Middlemarch Community-Led Housing, Gideon Amos MP and Councillor Victor Chamberlain from Southwark Council.
- From the Labour conference: Richard Kennedy from Cornerstone Place, Ben Cooper from the Fabian Society and Tom Copley, Deputy Mayor of London for Housing and Residential Development
- From the Conservative conference: Josh Smith from Next Gen Tories and Bob Blackman MP.
- Plaid Cymru and SNP conferences: While we held no events at these conferences, it was great to attend other events, network with other organisations, and meet with some of our partners. Thank you to our trustee, Damian Thompson, from Nationwide Building Society, and colleagues from Cwmpas, who invited us to support them on their stand.
Finally, of course, Thank you to everyone who joined us. We hope you found our events valuable and thought provoking. If you’d like to discuss any of the above with us, or just talk housing in general, reach out to us at enquiries@nationwidefoundation.org.uk
