Analysis suggests Govt target of a million new homes by 2020 is on course to fail

The British Government’s target of building a million new homes by 2020 will not succeed and fall short by almost 84,000 as construction has slowed, according to new research.

The Prime Minister set a target of a million new homes by 2020 in the run up to the 2017 general election but just six months later construction slowed and unless it picks up more strongly the target could be missed by up to 140,000.

The research from online estate agent HouseSimple looks at figures published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) which shows that the number of new homes started between the middle of 2015 when the pledge was made and the end of 2017 was 386,160.

Over the last two years the number of new build starts increased by 7,235 on average but the analysis says that even if that rate of growth can be maintained, building will begin on only 529,950 homes between 2018 and 2020. This means the Government will fail to meet its commitment by the end of 2020 with a shortfall of 83,890.

However, if the current rate of growth cannot be maintained, the margin will be even larger. Based on a two year average over 2016 and 2017, the report says that only 474,690 new homes would be started between January 2018 and the end of 2020 which would result in a shortfall of 139,150 homes.

It also says that the rate of new building had been growing steadily since 2013 and while that did continue in 2017, the number of new homes started in the third and fourth quarters of last year dropped to 76,250, a fall of 1.52% on the same period in 2016 when there were 77,430 new build starts.

Sam Mitchell, chief executive officer of House Simple, said:

‘It could be a case of better late than never if the rate of building growth is to be believed but it’s going to be a tall order to keep this going for the next seven years. The Government’s main concern should be the anticipated failure to deliver on its most basic pledge to build one million homes by the end of 2020.

‘If they fail, critics will simply paint the more lofty aspirations to build 300,000 homes a year as a piece of political theatre. This issue deserves to be more than a distraction for voters and it would help if the revolving door of housing ministers were to stop.

‘The housing crisis is real and affordability problems play havoc with other parts of the economy as first time buyers in particular are forced to part with significant chunks of their disposable income in order to get on the housing ladder.’

Kindly shared by Property Wire