Shelter have produced an excellent report about why housebuilding in the UK doesn’t work and what we could do instead. The full report is available on Shelter’s website.

Speculative Housebuilding

The UK doesn’t build enough houses, and the reason for this is because most are built by the speculative housebuilding model. That is land is bought by the big house builders and then houses are built and then sold.

Because developers have to pay for the land up front, and there is high competition for it, they have to work out how much they can afford to pay, how much it will cost them to build and what they can sell for.

This tends to mean that those who assume they can sell for the most and spend the least building, bid the most for the land and win. This means that those who include least affordable housing, no community facilities and build slowly to keep prices up are the ones who bid most.

It also means developments are of lower quality, less architectural value and have fewer additional community benefits.

There must be a better way.

New Civic Housebuilding

Shelter propose a different model for house building. One where land isn’t sold for its maximum price to start with, where land becomes available at a price where it is possible to build with better quality, architectural value and community benefit. Development is seen as a long term proposal, with patient finance invested for the long term.

We have built like this before, the development of new towns like Milton Keynes and Letchworth Garden City were carried out on this model and have proved it is possible.

Community Land Trust

CLTs are specifically mentioned as one of the delivery mechanisms for bring land forward at a reasonable price.

A Waterbeach CLT would be a method of getting involved in this. With the community leading development it would be possible to capture the benefit for the community, creating high quality houses for local people.

Adopting a CLT means we can create truly affordable housing for local people. It means we can drive towards a more sustainable village by helping people live and work in the same place. It means we can have a say in how development in the village happens.

Have a look at the full Shelter Report - New Civic Housebuilding for all the details.