Let me speak frankly, even with Brexit and the fact immigration numbers
will now be reduced in the coming years, there is an unending and severe
shortage of new housing being built in the Warminster area (and the UK as a
whole). Even if there are short term
confidence trembles fueled by newspapers hungry for bad news, the ever growing
population of Warminster with its high demand for property versus curtailed supply
of properties being built, this imbalance of supply/demand and the possibility
of even lower interest rates will underpin the property market.
When the Tories were elected in 2015, Mr. Cameron vowed
to build 1,000,000 new homes by 2020. If
we as a Country hit those levels of building, most academics stated the UK
Housing market would balance itself as the increased supply of property would
give a chance for the younger generation to buy their own home as opposed to rent. However, the up-to-date building figures show
that in the first three months of 2016 building starts were down. Nationally, there were 35,530 house building starts in the
first quarter, a long way off the 50,000 a quarter required to hit those
ambitious targets.
Looking
closer to home, over the last 12 months, new building in the Wiltshire Council
area has slumped. In 2014/15, for every
one thousand existing households in the area, an additional 11.25 homes were
built. For 2015/16, that figure is now
only 9.87 homes built per thousand existing households. Nationally, to meet that 1,000,000 new homes
target, we need to be at 7.12 new homes per thousand, which means
Wiltshire Council is actually above the National target, the problem is the
country is only building at a rate of 4.9 for every thousand exiting households
– we can’t just rely on little old Warminster or Wiltshire Council to build for
the rest of the Country.
To put
those numbers into real chimney pots, over the last 12 months, in the Wiltshire
Council area,
·
1,320 Private Builders (e.g. New Homes Builders)
·
680 Housing Association
·
Nil Local Authority
I am of the
opinion Messer’s Cameron and Osborne focused their attention too much on the
demand side of the housing equation, using the Help to Buy scheme and low
deposit mortgages to convert the ‘Generation Rent’ i.e. Warminster ‘20
somethings’ who are set to rent for the rest of their lives to ‘Generation Buy’.
On the other side of the coin, I would strongly
recommend the new Housing Minster, Gavin Barwell, should concentrate the Government’s
efforts on the supply side of the equation. There needs to be transformations to planning
laws, massive scale releases of public land and more investment, as more inventive
solutions are needed.
However,
ultimately, responsibility has to rest on the shoulders of Theresa May. Whilst our new PM has many plates to spin,
evading on the housing crisis will only come at greater cost later on. What a legacy it would be if it was Mrs. May
who finally got to grips with the persistent and enduring shortage of homes to
live in. The PM has already referenced
the ‘need to do far more to get more houses built’ and stop the decline of home
ownership. However, she has also ruled
out any changes to the green belt policy – something I will talk about in a
future up and coming article. Hopefully
these statistics will raise the alarm bells again and persuade both residents
and Councilor’s in the Wiltshire Council area that housing needs to be higher
on its agenda.
