Ten years after the publication of the Barker Review of Housing Supply, the Home Builders Federation (HBF) says the UK is now one million homes short of the number needed to adequately house the population.
The report by Kate Barker, which was published for the then Labour Government, warned that at least 210,000 private homes a year were needed in England to prevent a housing crisis. However, with an average of just 115,000 homes a year being built, the HBF says that the scale of the housing shortage is now apparent. It says that the shortfall is now equivalent to the number of homes in Birmingham and the surrounding areas.

Based on Kate Barker's original estimates and population changes since then, a new report from the HBF now estimates that achieving Barker's objective of 'Reducing the long-term trend' and gradually pricing households back into the market will now require 260,000 private housing starts.

In addition, to achieve Barker's most ambitious objective of 'Improving the housing market' will require 320,000 private sector starts per year - three times the number completed last year and a figure achieved in only four years since World War II.

The Federation says that even achieving the least ambitious of Barker's three objectives, to slow down the rate at which households are priced out of the market, would require more than 200,000 private starts per year - a figure last achieved in 1973.

However, delivering one million additional homes over the next decade could more than halve the social housing waiting list and sustain an additional 350,000 jobs a year.

Speaking at HBF's Policy Conference on 24 March, alongside report author Kate Barker, Stewart Baseley, executive chairman of HBF, said: 'The Barker Review was a seminal report for housing and starkly illustrated the scale of the emerging crisis. Since then successive Governments have failed to pay heed and develop policies to deliver the homes the country needs.

'Whilst the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme is finally starting to drive demand and significantly increase supply, we start from a very low base and the shortfall is huge.'

Mr Baseley added: 'As we approach a general election, we now need to see all parties committing to policies that lead to a sustained increase in house-building. We have to build our way out of the crisis. Building the homes the country needs will provide the decent homes people deserve and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.'