An MP is calling for urgent action to end the housing crisis that has seen prices outstrip wages in the last year.
Islwyn MP Chris Evans said the average house price in his constituency stands at £113,285 – compared to average salaries of £22,622.
He said that for many people, owning a property of their own was a “distant dream” being made worse by reductions in council housing budgets, with less council housing and more people looking to buy.
Mr Evans added house building is low with a 12% drop in homes built in Wales in 2013.
He said: “It seems that for the first time ever, almost everyone now acknowledges the need to build more homes and that housing must be a political priority.
“Housing is one of the biggest issues facing Britain. For decades we, as a country, haven’t built enough new homes, which has pushed up prices in Islwyn.
“Young people still strive to get on the housing ladder but that dream has become increasingly distant over the past thirty years. At the same time families struggle to find a decent home at a price they can afford.
“Ensuring that people have access to good housing is a local issue, but it must also continue to be a national priority. That’s why in the run up to the General Election I’ll be campaigning to end the housing crisis within a generation.”
The causes of the housing crisis is improvements in medical care and immigration. With people living longer more homes are taken up at any one time. The cycle of turning the home over to a new generation after one generation has died now takes longer.
Secondly, the birthrate of Britons is below the number needed for steady population replacement (2.6), the population is only growing with births due to immigrants having on average above 2.6 children. There is also an increasing population with more people moving into Britain.
Why is politicians want to solve the effects and not the causes?
“Why is politicians want to solve the effects and not the causes?”
Basically because of political dogma and some very old fashioned ideas. Countries once needed a population increase in order to have fresh supplies of young workers for the mines and factories. Population increase was also required for military might. The latter was a major concern for France in the late 19th, early 20th centuries when their stagnant population growth was unfavourably compared to the fast growing German population. The French feared this imbalance would lead to them being overwhelmed by their ancient enemy. Hence their enthusiam for alliance with Imperial Russia and the British Empire, two other ancient enemies.
All this is very interesting but should be just history now. Politicians have, mostly, not grasped that there are no longer massive employers in modern economies, wars are increasingly fought by machines and (certainly in Britain) we have reached the limit of viable population. In the Second World War the population of Britain was about 43 million, which seems about right.
Without huge net immigration population would fall, due the birth rate you correctly highlight. This reduction in population is very desirable as it would reduce pressure on the NHS, housing requirements, education and agricultural land. A slowly falling population would also spur research into technology as human workers became more valuable and consequently better paid.
I cannot see a single disadvantage of living in a country where the population is in slow decline. We live in the 21st century, not the 19th, but our leaders hanker after a vanished world where building more houses on farmland and developing new towns are seen as progress and actually boast about this in party literature.
Due to the ridiculous over regulation on new house builds by the Labour Welsh government the housing situation is only going to get worse. It is estimated that it costs£3000 more per house to build in Wales than the rest of the UK and when yet another unnecessary regulation, the sprinkler system is forced onto builders it will add another £3000 to £4000 to the cost of a house build. This is making house builders like Persimmon refuse to build in some parts of Wales because it is simply not cost effective for them.
Another problem we have in the U.K is that folk buy a house and expect the value of it to double year on year, then we have greedy estate agents who artificially push up house prices to inflate the market, never mind more regulation on house builders there needs to be some regulation on estate agents. Then we have the people who are buying up houses as an investment, a great deal of people are selling one house and buying two – one to live in and one as a pension plan. I feel sorry for the young people trying to get their foot on the property ladder, perhaps they should consider emigrating to another country as unless there is a massive housing price crash they are never going to be able to afford a home of their own.