community led housing

Along with friends from two other consultancies we are scoping out the potential for the Scottish Government to generate a step change in the delivery of community led housing. I love the Scottish approach to tackling many problems, which is to get the key players round a table and sort it out as a group. It’s a benefit of relatively small population scale which helps them work together more effectively than our laborious top down approach to rural policy in England. The relative approach to LEADER in the two countries is another example. In the meantime as this article illustrates we have a burgeoning housing crisis south of the border.

With the average price of a house now just over £200,000 and rents in the private sector soaring in parts of the country, many observers argue that the UK is in the grip of a housing crisis.

In London in particular, entire developments containing hundreds of flats are often sold before construction has even begun.

The failure to build enough homes means that millions of people are stuck renting when they would rather be living in a home they own.

The housing charity Shelter says the shortage is “enormously damaging, socially as well as economically” and is forcing a quarter of those aged under 35 to stay living with their parents.

Just 125,110 homes were built in England in the year to March, according to government figures. That is about half as many needed to keep up with demand, and the problem is compounded every year.

The National Housing Federation estimates that compared with demand, there is now a shortfall of more than half a million dwellings.