Red brick, yellow brick, blue brick…
Imagine a political party completely in touch with public opinion on the topic of housing…
Imagine a political party completely in touch with public opinion on housing. How would it address the issue? What would its priorities be? What policies would it pursue?
This imaginary party would recognise the national housing crisis. It wouldn’t be afraid to acknowledge this and its longevity but would avoid doing so in a fatalistic way, clearly articulating that the Government is willing and able to affect change.
It would be careful to recognise the variation in the nature of the crisis and its impacts in different areas — rural, urban, north, south, east, west. While housing problems aren’t the same in, for example, Cornwall, Cardiff, Carlisle and Croydon or, more poetically, the Red Wall and the Blue Wall, there is a common thread the length and breadth of the country. Affordability has got out of control and the housing ‘have nots’ are hurting.
The party would favour building new homes. A lot of them. But not in a way which sacrifices quality in favour of quantity or doesn’t reflect the key priority of improving affordability. It would take a dim view of identikit out-of-context developments devoid of supportive infrastructure. New housing needs to be purposefully placed and produced, not plonked.
It would propose a strategy based around a healthy tenure mix, meeting the public’s appetite and aspiration for homeownership while putting the expansion of social housing front and centre of policy and progress. It would want (semi)-detached houses as well as flats and apartments, creating places not just property.
To do this, it would reform the planning system, starting with core principles to ensure that development is sustainable (in all senses of that word) and proportionate (in all senses of that word too). This will mean protecting greenfield and preventing sprawl, but not at the expense of social and economic progress.
It would find a way to create space and agency for local leadership, accountability and flexibility — such as giving powers to local councils allowing them to increase council tax on second homes and homes that are left empty for more than 6 months. It would scope systems which distribute planning ‘gain’ among communities living near to larger-scale proposed developments.
The party would consider reviewing Greenbelt policy, property taxation and regulation, about creating new towns and garden cities. It will commit itself to doing this carefully and deliberatively, informing and involving the public on these issues to surface and debate trade-offs, looking beyond the short-term. True, the public aren’t agitating for any of this but it does want progress and thinks government isn’t good at planning for the future.
The party would redress the imbalance between private landlords and tenants, giving greater security of tenure and improving conditions. If not pursuing rent caps (favoured by the public), it would be pragmatic by bring greater controls and regulation into place. And it would champion and protect the rights of private and social tenants, giving them routes to redress when things go wrong.
It would use policy to address the perceived weaknesses of each rental tenure. These include the lack of choice in social housing, an allocations system perceived to be unfair, and greater risk of anti-social behaviour. For private renting, it would target affordability and suitability for a more diverse tenant population.
It would support efforts to build awareness and understanding of new (or at least unfamiliar) tenures including shared ownership and rent to buy. And it would look to support owner-occupiers at every run of the property ladder.
Our party would contribute to an economic environment favourable to interest rate stability and, thus, mortgage affordability and would avoid anything which inflates demand while supply continues to lag. It would be worrying about interest rates not just because they are at a 15-year high but also because, according to the Resolution Foundation, around half of households with a mortgage have yet to see their rate change since the Bank of England started raising rates.
This list of popular policies may seem fanciful and, if our imaginary party truly reflected the public, it would doubt its own ability to deliver. It would also consider other issues to be more pressing in the short-term. But it would find ways to give housing the attention it deserves as a lynchpin social and economic issue.
Such a party doesn’t exist, but let’s be cheerful. The policies listed here are not especially new, nor controversial (the exception to this is building new homes although the divisiveness of this has perhaps been over-stated). What’s needed is already clear and present in the various manifestoes of the political parties. Most are on the same page in terms of the direction if not the degree of delivery. There is no yawning gap between expert and public opinion.
However, as Ben Ansell has said, housing is a “problem from hell” and the crisis has been decades in the marking. We will not get anywhere if those in power continue to see housing as something to be weaponised or neutralised, ignored or filed in the ‘too difficult’ folder. Bu there does seem to be renewed engagement with housing as a priority area (although it previously didn’t get a mention in either Sunak’s or Starmer’s five pledges).
Tackling the housing crisis will require skill and patience, the ability and bravery to lead as well as follow public opinion. Our imaginary party must show imagination to deliver real and lasting change. Otherwise, its legacy will be another brick in a wall blocking progress.
