£11.6 billion need to solve UK housing crises

In the opening address at this year’s Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Annual Conference and Exhibition in Harrogate, CIH President Paul Diggory has called on the Government to tackle the growing crisis by investing £11.6bn in housing in the Comprehensive Spending Review scheduled to be announced this autumn.

It is estimated that 1.6 million people are now on a waiting list for an affordable home and over 100,000 people are still living in temporary accommodation. In addition, key workers like nurses, teachers and police officers are able to take up employment in key parts of the country because of the housing shortage.

CIH and its partners want Government to commit to building 70,000 new affordable homes a year over the next three years. And with the Government's own National Housing and Planning Advice Unit predicting 10-times-salary mortgages, CIH wants priority is given to those people struggling to get onto the housing ladder.

In his speech the CIH President also wanted housing policy to acknowledge the important issue that some people don't want or can't afford to buy. His comments were echoed in a recent CIH Member survey with 83% of respondents stating they thought that there was too much emphasis on homeownership at the expense of renting. He also called for more to be done to tackle climate change and the runaway buy-to-let market.