It’s been two decades since economist, Dame Kate Barker’s, landmark housing supply review and a new report has found that successive political failings have left the UK with a property shortfall of up to two million houses.
Commissioned by the Treasury to address decades of undersupply, the Barker report was hailed as ‘the most detailed analysis of the housing market in 50 years’, with then Chancellor, Gordon Brown hoping it would act as a blueprint for a cross-party approach to improving national housing affordability.
Currently, just 11 of Barker’s 36 recommendations are in place while recent changes to the planning system announced by Michael Gove have alone led to the rolling back of three measures Barker identified to improve the housing market for first-time buyers.
Overall, the politicisation of planning and general lack of emphasis on housebuilding has seen the country fall far short of the housing supply scenarios laid out by Barker, which she forecast would have priced more households into the market.
New analysis by the HBF shows that the nation is two million homes short of the report’s most ambitious scenario, which would have had the greatest impact on affordability.
The ‘Beyond Barker’ report reflects on Barker’s key findings and recommendations, how they were acted on and the consequences of many of them not being followed through with. It highlights that:
England would have two million more homes today – equivalent to the entire housing stock of Ireland, or the urban areas of Manchester and Birmingham combined – if the Barker Review’s most ambitious housing supply scenario had been achieved.
Even compared to Barker’s central scenario for increasing housing supply (requiring 240,000 homes to be built a year on average) England has still fallen 900,000 homes short of the total number needed to make the market more affordable over the past 20 years.
Barker’s central housing supply targets for moderately pricing households into the market over time have been met just twice in 20 years (2018-19 and 2019-20), during a period when ministers promoted progressive planning and housing policies and the government had in place a first-time buyer support scheme.
Only 11 of the 36 recommendations of the Barker Review are currently in place – with a further 10 having only been partially implemented. Five recommendations were implemented and then reversed.
The recent changes to the National Planning Policy Framework saw regression on progress on three of the Barker Review’s recommendations relating to targets, the allocation of land by local authorities, and the Green Belt.
Two decades on from Barker’s prediction that “for many the aspiration [for home ownership] will remain unfulfilled unless the trend in real house prices is reduced”, the report shows that her prediction has proved disappointingly prophetic.
Over the past 20 years:
The average age of first-time buyers has risen from 31 to 34
Homeownership levels have fallen from 71% to 65%,
Housing affordability has worsened in every single local authority in England
The ratio of median house prices to earnings has increased from 5.1 to 8.3
Barker set out three scenarios to increase housing supply and make the housing market more affordable. The most ambitious scenario required 297k homes a year to be built, just below the current government’s 300,000 target but a figure not achieved in a single year since 2002, falling on average 110k short each year.
Barker also identified that planning was the biggest barrier to delivery, which was echoed recently by the CMA’s year-long market investigation into housebuilding. With the housing secretary rolling back the positive planning reforms of the early 2010s last December, the ‘Beyond Barker’ report suggests that the same barriers are being encountered again and urges the government to reverse its recent changes.
Stewart Baseley, executive chairman at the Home Builders Federation, said:
“Frustratingly many of Kate’s recommendations and barriers to housing delivery highlighted in the 2004 review remain as relevant today as they did then.”
“Ministers can consult this 20-year-old review, pick up the report published just last month by the independent CMA, or browse the plethora of papers and articles in between. The answer is clear: the planning regime is failing to deliver. The country’s economic prosperity and the needs of younger households must now be put ahead of short-term political expediency. We urge them to be brave.”
“All indicators now show a further sharp decline in supply is ahead – the inevitable result of several years of anti-growth policy and rhetoric. The politically driven weakening of the planning system will impact housing supply for years to come and needs to be urgently reversed, whilst many of the other recommendations put forward 20 years ago could still have a positive impact.”
“Meanwhile, the social and economic implications of an ongoing lack of supply are deepening, with a generation unable to access decent housing and investment in jobs and communities all suffering.”
Dame Kate Barker, in her foreword to the report, said: “As the HBF report makes clear, some policy changes have moved further away from support for sufficient housing supply, compounded by the squeeze on resources in planning departments.
“To the extent the Review could be counted a success, that success has waned. The prospect of 300,000 new homes a year in England seems as far off today as it did in 2004.”
Read the full ‘Beyond Barker’ report here
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