Why can't the UK build 240,000 houses a year?

vivatifosi

Interesting article from the beeb. Goes into detail on the reasons that it believes that the house building target. Nothing that we haven't seen before, but interesting to see it all put together like this.

Their reasons are:

1. Planning permission
2. Lack of available land
3. Housebuilders sitting on land
4. State no longer builds
5. Rules affecting housing association builds
6. Skills/materials shortages
7. Fewer small builders

Well worth a read:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30776306

daveyjp

No mention whatsever about some areas of the country having a failed house building market?

If the end value doesn't cover the total costs of construction the houses don't get built.

kabayiri

8. The consequences of not hitting the target are NIL.

Because of this we get political soundbites "to show something is being done" without any real expectation of measuring against target.

Some would call it incompetent management if you translated the procurement target into a different area / company which depended on it.

If your livelihood depends on it, you find a way.

antrobus

It's a shame we can't being back Harold Macmillan, he managed to build 300,000 of the darned things.

Thrugelmir

vivatifosi wrote: »

Interesting article from the beeb. Goes into detail on the reasons that it believes that the house building target. Nothing that we haven't seen before, but interesting to see it all put together like this.

Really no great surprises then. Takes years to build infrastructure. While we live in 24/7 world. Some things do take a lot longer than people think.

Blacklight

It's very straightforward. Why can't widget producers generate massive oversupply to reduce the price of widgets? They will obviously only produce what's needed to keep the price where they want it (a la opec).

The last time I pointed this out though someone said it wasn't correct because loads of smaller widget makers would obviously undercut everyone, meaning the big players had to drop their prices. Well where are they then?

Aura

Because it's all first time buy rubbish and not enough social housing. It's too expensive to buy a house, I rent with a housing association and an no way could I afford it anyway.

ruggedtoast

Why can't the UK build 240,000 houses a year?

The boomers.

Blacklight

Aura wrote: »

Because it's all first time buy rubbish and not enough social housing. It's too expensive to buy a house, I rent with a housing association and an no way could I afford it anyway.

You earn £9k a year... even if rates of housebuilding were several magnitudes of scale higher I doubt you'd be able to afford anywhere.

chewmylegoff

vivatifosi wrote: »

Interesting article from the beeb. Goes into detail on the reasons that it believes that the house building target. Nothing that we haven't seen before, but interesting to see it all put together like this.

Their reasons are:

1. Planning permission
2. Lack of available land
3. Housebuilders sitting on land
4. State no longer builds
5. Rules affecting housing association builds
6. Skills/materials shortages
7. Fewer small builders

Well worth a read:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30776306

If the Govt wants 250,000ish houses built a year every year for some time then it seems pretty obvious that it is going to have to intervene in the current house building market in a serious way because the market is delivering roughly half of that.

Unless the government identifies sites for mass house building, pushes the plans through and provides at least some of the financing it seems unlikely that we will get anywhere near 250,000 (or 240,000 or whatever) a year for any sustained period.

Carl31

why dont councils build anymore? surely this is a big part of the problem, and the solution the government can control easiest?