The word “crisis” is commonly, and justifiably, used to describe the housing market in England. This has been caused in large part because there aren’t enough homes being built. There were almost 250,000 “net additional dwellings” in 2019-20 but this has fallen to about 234,000 in 2022-23 — a far cry from the government’s stated target of 300,000 a year, which is in turn far below the number of new homes that we really need.
Building houses takes a significant amount of time. All housing schemes will have been conceived many years before any resident can turn a key in the lock of their new home. Any large-scale housing developments completed around the turn of this decade will have their roots in the planning system
