Property: Crisis critical over lack of housing in the South West
05-31-2015
By Western Daily Press
By Janet Hughes
No, Bristol Mayor George Ferguson hasn't put trousers in wrong wash...
Just 17,700 homes were built in the South West between April 2014 and March 2015, when it is widely accepted that the region needed 24,200 just to keep up with demand.
The situation across the region is patchy with Bath falling a handful of houses short, but Bristol, North Somerset and Swindon missing their target by thousands of homes.
A lack of properties is pushing up prices, with people now needing an average £30,000 deposit to buy a home and tenants in some areas paying record rents.
"We have a far reaching housing crisis and at its heart is the reality that not nearly enough homes have been built for a generation or more," said Kat Hart, external affairs manager for the South West at the National Housing Federation.
"Housing associations are building, but they need a bold government to play its part too and lead the way for new homes. Our new Government has committed to end the housing crisis within a generation, now it must free up land and provide proper investment to make that happen."
Across England, in the four years 2011 to 2014, the total shortfall against the need for new homes totalled 515,340.
In North Somerset only 430 homes were built, leaving the authority 1,198 short on the 1,628 needed. Bristol was 1,000 homes short of the 2,302 needed and in Swindon only 370 homes were built, leaving a shortfall of 1,150. Dorset built 773 fewer houses than needed, Gloucestershire 641, Somerset 244 and South Gloucestershire 153.
The Federation says the Government must invest in building more affordable homes for low rent and shared ownership. Around 6,000 new affordable homes are needed each year in the South West, last year only 4,940 were built.
Campaigners say decades of decline in housebuilding is being exacerbated by a growing population as people living longer and the birth rate increasing. Over the last decade seven million babies were born, around the same number that were born in the 1950s when England was building an average of 230,000 homes a year. Now only about half that amount are being completed every year. The Government claim the situation is getting better and the number of new homes started is at its highest levels since 2007,