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by lhopki01
3416 days ago
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No I'm just realistic about what the private sector will do. If you look at the long running trend in house building since the second world war private companies have built roughly 200,000 units a year varying by about 50,000 units a year. Significantly this held true when the government also built 200,000 units a year and also when the government stopped building too. The private sector will only ever build for the top end of the market and never in the quantities actually needed to reduce house prices. So yes if we opened up the green belt it would be built on but it wouldn't achieve anything to alleviate the housing crisis. And before you say anything I am a late 20s person living in London without any hope of owning my own house. Finally sprawl is a massive issue and encouraging sprawl over densification will only make the situation worse. |
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It would be more accurate to say:
> I'm just realistic about what the government will do. If you look at the long running trend in the granting of planning permissions since the second world war, the government has allowed roughly 200,000 units a year to be built.
The private sector builds as many houses as it is legally allowed to do so. This is, as you note, an insufficient number. And yes of course, when they're not allowed to build enough houses to meet demand, they will prioritize building the most profitable ones.
> The private sector will only ever build for the top end of the market and never in the quantities actually needed to reduce house prices.
Yes, we've passed laws to make damn sure of that.
> So yes if we opened up the green belt it would be built on but it wouldn't achieve anything to alleviate the housing crisis.
It's quite possibly true that focusing on denser, brownfield developments is a better idea. But it's rather absurd to suggest that building more houses isn't going to help with the problem of there not being enough houses.