Government to build one million homes
21/09/2015
The UK government has aimed to build one million new homes in England by 2020 in a bid to combat the current housing crisis.
Current figures from the National Housing Federation show that fewer than one million homes needed to be built between 2011 and 2014 to deal with the crisis. Figures from local councils show that just 457,490 were actually built. The Federation said that if current trends continue the UK will need 250,000 new houses built each year to stop the crisis.
The Government has now aimed to build one million new homes over the next five years to combat the deficit.
The housing crisis has been created through a number of reasons, ranging from planning procedures being too slow to developers sitting on large tracts of empty land instead of building on it. The charity Shelter has also criticised a shortage of land and developers who sit on land and build slowly rather than progressing quickly.
Gill Payne, director of policy and external affairs, said:
"In some areas, there is a drastic shortage causing prices to soar, putting homes out of the reach of many people.
"Families and young people across the country are crying out for genuinely affordable homes so they can put roots down and achieve their dreams of owning a home.
"Skyrocketing rents and ballooning house prices are eating up more and more of people's wages and forcing people out of their local communities or into smaller, lower quality housing.
"We haven't built enough homes in this country for decades, and if the gap between the number of households forming and the number of new homes being built continues to grow, we are in danger of not being able to house our children."
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