Commercial Property - Higher housing targets will not improve affordability

Higher housing targets will not improve affordability - new study shows

Government plans for huge increases in house building will not improve affordability - in 20 years home ownership will be even further out of reach for average earners says new research for the South East England Regional Assembly.

An analysis of data used by Government advisors reveals that even if Ministers force building targets up by over 50% average house prices will rise to 9.6 times average income in the South East by 2026. In 2007 an average home cost 8.4 times average salary.

Assembly Chairman Cllr Keith Mitchell CBE said: "This is madness. Government's plans are clearly flawed. They are fixated with numbers but we now have evidence to show that simply building more homes is not the answer to the affordability crisis.

"The Assembly has set out an alternative plan to ensure that a third of all new homes are affordable - either to rent from housing associations or for part rent-part buy. We believe this is a far more practical and reliable way of helping people into decent homes that they can afford."

Cllr Mitchell added: "Giving priority to affordable homes while building at current rates avoids adding to the pressure on the South East's overstretched infrastructure and our precious environment.

"The housing market is more complex than the Government makes out. We have independent evidence now that simply forcing through higher levels of house building just will not work."

The research report 'Housing and Affordability in the South East' by Professor Christine Whitehead from the London School of Economics is now available on the Assembly website www.southeast-ra.gov.uk/housing_publications_research.html and will be discussed at the Assembly's Regional Planning Committee on 21 May 2008.

News from: www.southeast-ra.gov.uk/news_alerts.html