Theresa May’s pledge to build one million homes by 2020 will result in an actual housebuilding increase of only 9,000 properties a year, research has found.
The Conservative Party’s commitment, which runs from mid-2015 to the end of 2020, amounts to a housebuilding rate of 175,000 properties a year. However, the present ten-year average rate of housebuilding in England is only slightly smaller, at 166,000 new homes a year.
Mrs May’s plans will cause the housing surplus, which is the difference between the housing stock and the number of households, to fall by 2022, according to research by Property Partner, a property investment website.
Last year England had a housing surplus of 2.2 per cent, or 504,079 homes. On the rate of housebuilding set out in the Conservative manifesto and the rate of household growth projected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the surplus would fall to 1.4 per cent by 2022 and enter deficit in 2025. London has had a housing shortfall since 2014.
The manifesto also promises an extra 500,000 homes by 2022.
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In the Labour Party’s manifesto, Jeremy Corbyn promised one million more homes by the end of 2022, amounting to 200,000 homes a year, an increase of 34,000 a year on the present rate of building.
The Liberal Democrats have pledged a housebuilding rate of 300,000 homes a year by 2022.
Mark Weedon, head of research at Property Partner, said: “The housing market is broken, there are not enough homes and despite both of the UK’s major parties’ stated ambitions to tackle the housing crisis, their manifesto plans fall short given the scale of the problem.”