Lyons Housing Commission report
In November 2016, BSRIA welcomed the Lyons’ Housing Commission report ‘What more should Government do to promote the building of new homes?’
Building on recommendations from its previous report, the Lyons Housing Review, published in 2014, it suggests that in the forthcoming Housing White Paper and Industrial Strategy, the Government has the opportunity to develop a more comprehensive approach. An approach of this kind, they say, could help tackle the housing crisis by driving a sustained increase in the quantity, quality and affordability of new homes.
The Lyons Housing Commission was established in 2013 to advise how a future Government might bring about a sustainable increase in house building in England to 200,000 homes a year by 2020.
The new report states that ‘a sustained step-change in house building will be critical to the health of the national economy and to improving the quality of life for current and future generations.’
Some of the proposals for the Government to consider include:
- Bringing forward a wider range of sites to address dysfunction in the land market.
- Ensuring the more rapid building out of sites with planning permission awarded.
- Going beyond the narrow focus on home ownership to a whole-system solution, focusing on supply-side measures.
- Recognising the important roles that Housing associations, Local Authorities and SMEs can play in growing the industry’s capacity to deliver more homes.
- Emphasising quality for sustainable and successful long-term development.
- Understanding that different areas have different needs, and delivering accordingly.
Julia Evans, Chief Executive, BSRIA, said:
“BSRIA welcomes this timely and important review which supports our long running coverage of the housing issue.
“But building homes is a matter of quality as well as quantity. The focus on more volume makes quality more important than ever and an added emphasis on the status of quality of homes and places is needed to guarantee that in challenging the housing crisis we are not building the costly slums or soulless estates of tomorrow.
“Some of the ‘offsite’ building and zero waste methods that are currently being adopted do signify an exciting movement which can be explored more and offer the potential for changes within the industry.
“It should be noted that in the two years since the Lyon’s Housing Commission published its review of housing supply, tackling the housing crisis has risen up the national political agenda and is rooted as a top priority for government.
“In essence, economic growth – for both the UK and the industry – is crucial. The confidence to invest in major housebuilding schemes is key to solving housing growth.”
This article was originally published here by BSRIA on 16 November 2016.
--BSRIA
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