New House Building in
Wellingborough slumps by 43.7% in the last year
Let me speak frankly,
even with Brexit and the fact immigration numbers will now be reduced in the
coming years, there is an unending and severe shortage of new housing being
built in the Wellingborough area (and the UK as a whole). Even if there are short term confidence
trembles fueled by newspapers hungry for bad news, the ever growing population
of Wellingborough with its high demand for property versus curtailed supply of
properties being built, this imbalance of supply/demand and the possibility of
even lower interest rates will underpin the property market.
When the Tories were
elected in 2015, Mr. Cameron vowed to build 1,000,000 new homes by 2020. If we as a Country hit those levels of
building, most academics stated the UK Housing market would balance itself as
the increased supply of property would give a chance for the younger generation
to buy their own home as opposed to rent.
However, the up-to-date building figures show that in the first three
months of 2016 building starts were down. Nationally, there were 35,530 house building starts in the first
quarter, a long way off the 50,000 a quarter required to hit those ambitious
targets.
Looking closer to
home, over the last 12 months, new building in the Wellingborough District
Council area has slumped. In 2014/15,
for every one thousand existing households in the area, an additional 11.26 homes
were built. For 2015/16, that figure is
now only 6.33 homes built per thousand existing households. Nationally, to meet that 1,000,000 new homes
target, we need to be at 7.12 new homes per thousand.
To put those numbers
into real chimney pots, over the last 12 months, in the Wellingborough District
Council area,
·
200 Private
Builders (e.g. New Homes Builders)
·
10 Housing Association
·
Nil Local
Authority
These new house
building numbers are down to the fact that not enough is being done to fix the
broken Wellingborough housing market. We
are still only seeing 210 new homes being built per year in the Wellingborough
District Council area, when we need at least 236 a year to even stand still!
I am of the opinion
Messer’s Cameron and Osborne focused their attention too much on the demand
side of the housing equation, using the Help to Buy scheme and low deposit
mortgages to convert the ‘Generation Rent’ i.e. Wellingborough ‘20 somethings’
who are set to rent for the rest of their lives to ‘Generation Buy’. On the other side of the coin, I would strongly
recommend the new Housing Minster, Gavin Barwell, should concentrate the Government’s
efforts on the supply side of the equation. There needs to be transformations to planning
laws, massive scale releases of public land and more investment, as more inventive
solutions are needed.
However, ultimately,
responsibility has to rest on the shoulders of Theresa May. Whilst our new PM has many plates to spin,
evading on the housing crisis will only come at greater cost later on. What a legacy it would be if it was Mrs. May
who finally got to grips with the persistent and enduring shortage of homes to
live in. The PM has already referenced
the ‘need to do far more to get more houses built’ and stop the decline of home
ownership. However, she has also ruled
out any changes to the green belt policy – something I will talk about in a
future up and coming article. Hopefully
these statistics will raise the alarm bells again and persuade both residents
and Councilor’s in the Wellingborough District Council area that housing needs
to be higher on its agenda.
In the meantime, for
more thoughts and opinion on the Wellingborough Property Market, please visit
the Wellingborough Property Blog http://wellingboroughpropertyblog.blogspot.co.uk/
