The impact of COVID-19 has left the Government falling short of its target to build one million new homes over the whole of the parliament, a think tank has warned.
Research by the Resolution Foundation has found that developers only built 94,000 new homes during the first three-quarters of 2020.
Housing Outlook Q1 2021 said that while house-building returned to pre-pandemic levels by September 2020, other challenges are facing the sector in the medium-term. This includes the sharp fall in migrant workers across the sector, falling household incomes and the end of the Stamp Duty cut.
Lindsay Judge, research director at the Resolution Foundation, said: ‘This Parliament was supposed to be a record-breaking one for housebuilding, with one million new homes built over the five-year term.
’But COVID-19 has dealt an early, and significant, blow to that target, with fewer than 100,000 homes built during the first nine months of 2020.’
The report argues that the social sector could help fill the gap in output as it is more protected from the market than the private sector.
Ms Judge added: 'If the Government wants to hit its welcome target, it should turn to the social housing sector – which historically has provided up to one-in-three new homes – to provide the supply that millions of families Britain need.'
Today, the Welsh Government announced it was on track to exceed its target of delivering 20,000 affordable homes by 2021.
The figures also show it has delivered the highest annual level of social homes since records began in 2008.
