The Government will not meet its target of building 1.5 million homes over the parliament without investing in affordable housing, according to a new report.
The Resolution Foundation think-tank said mandatory local authority housing targets and the new formula for setting targets should enable faster development if the Government ‘holds its nerve against local opposition’.
But it said the reforms were ‘not sufficient’ to meet the housebuilding target, largely because the Government was still too reliant on the private sector to deliver new homes.
The think-tank, which focuses on the living standards of those on low to middle incomes, called for ‘significant’ public investment in affordable housing in the upcoming Spending Review.
The Resolution Foundation also said plans to prioritise housebuilding on brownfield land and use low-quality Green Belt for development would provide only enough land for a million new homes.
Researcher Camron Aref-Adib said: ‘If the Government wants to build the 1.5 million more homes that Britain needs, there’s no alternative to direct intervention via greater public investment in affordable housing.
‘That’s the only way Britain has built at scale in the past, and it’s crucial to delivering in the future too.’
