There is a serious shortage of homes across the UK. While the government plans to build half a million homes between the Wash and the Thames, it is predicted that England will have to accommodate an additional 4.4 million households. How are the young ever to afford to get on the housing ladder given the severe shortage of affordable housing? Should greenbelt land be used to alleviate the growing problem? This book looks at the housing crisis and what is being done to solve it.
The information comes from a wide variety of sources and includes government reports and statistics, newspaper reports, features, magazine articles and surveys, literature from lobby groups and charitable organisations.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Housing Problems
Home truths, Homes, Where the housing ladder is out of reach, Highest house prices, Government ‘failing rural poor’ on housing, Property boom squeezes out the first-time buyers, House price rises 2003, Singles now major players in housing market, The crisis of affordable housing, Incomes required to access home-ownership, The growing use of temporary accommodation, Tipping the balance, The cost of buying in the private sector, London’s housing crisis, Housing and the environment, Environmental issues, Brownfield? Greenfield?, 500,000 new homes for M11 region, Building problems for the future, Wanted: new city to solve UK housing crisis, Household growth in England.
Chapter Two: Housing Solutions
Have I got the house for you, 120,000 new homes on the way, Urban land in Britain, Communities not concrete, Major growth, The rural housing crisis, The unaffordable cost of affordable housing, Shelter applauds government commitment to affordable housing, Affordable housing, More than just a gateway?, Building more houses ‘could benefit wildlife’, Brownfield building, Builders ‘have enough land for 280,000 houses’, Building for life, One million sustainable homes, One the home front, The Communities Plan.
Key Facts
Additional Resources
Index
• There is a serious shortage of homes across the whole of southern and eastern England. (p. 1)
• The Halifax said prices in the North were up 33.7 per cent in a year to an average of £103,314. This takes the increase over two years to 60 per cent. (p. 6)
• By 2010, single-person households will predominate, accounting for almost 40 per cent of all households in the UK. (p. 7)
• It is accepted that up to 40 per cent of new homes will have to be built on greenfield land. (p. 9)
• The average cost of buying a home in London is £228,625 compared to a national average of £140,624. (p. 10)
• Britain will need a new city the size of Leeds to be built over the next decade if it is to tackle the chronic housing shortage which leads to rocketing house prices that keep potential first-time buyers off the property ladder. (p. 20)
• Before 2016 it is predicted that England alone will have to accommodate an additional 4.4 million households. (p. 25)
• There are 997,000 empty homes in the UK, 4.1% of the stock. Government-owned stock is 16% vacant. 6% of properties in London are empty. (p. 25)
• Home ownership in the UK (69%) is not especially high. Rates are higher in Ireland (80%), Italy (78%), Spain (78%), Greece (75%), Luxembourg (72%), Australia (71%) and New Zealand (70%), and a little lower in the United States (67%), Portugal (66%) and Belgium (65%). (p. 30)
• Homes are getting smaller. The average size of dwellings built in England from 1980 to 1996 was 10% less than in pre-1980 dwellings. Average plot sizes are also getting smaller. (p. 30)
• The leading house builders possess sufficient land with at least outline planning permission to build 278,866 homes - enough for a row of terrace houses stretching from Land's End to John o'Groats. (p. 35)
• WWF is calling on the British government and the regional assemblies to commit themselves to developing a million sustainable homes by 2012. (p. 37)
Housing Crisis Study Guide
Each book in the Issues series has a study guide. These four-page guides provide a variety of discussion points and other activities to suit a wide range of ability levels and interests.
Publisher: Independence Educational Publishers
Price: £1.50
ISBN: 978 1 86168 298 7
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