February 28th 2024
Charity claims investing in social housing could add billions to the economy
New research shows investing over £50bn into the sector could help the economy, including £12bn profit to the taxpayer.
The research, which was commissioned by Shelter and the National Housing Federation (NHF) and published in a report called The economic impact of building social housing, found that building 90,000 social homes each year would generate £51.2bn net of economic and social benefits over the next 30 years.
On a smaller scale, the report states that within three years, building the houses would break even and return £37.8bn back to the economy, largely by boosting the construction industry.
According to the latest research, the UK construction sector is in a downward spiral. Covering the three months to the end of October 2023, figures from Glenigan’s latest index, performance across every vertical was so poor that there was no improvements against the previous three months.
However, the new report found that if new social homes were built, it would generate £4.5bn in savings on housing benefit, £2.5bn of income from construction taxes, £3.8bn of income from employment taxes, £5.2bn in savings to the NHS, £4.5bn in savings from reducing homelessness, and £3.3bn savings to Universal Credit.
Against this backdrop, the NHF and Shelter said that for decades, successive governments have ‘failed to build enough social homes and every year we lose more than we build through Right to Buy sales and demolitions’.
As a result, ahead of the next general election, both organisations are calling for political parties to commit to ending the housing crisis.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said that homelessness is a ‘political choice, with a simple solution’.
She said: ‘Building 90,000 social homes a year will not only end the housing emergency, but due to the wider economic benefits it brings, it will pay for itself within just three years.’
‘Day after day our frontline services are inundated with calls from people who are being tipped into homelessness because there are no genuinely affordable homes available and private renting is just too expensive,’ Polly said. ‘Communities are being torn apart as people are priced out of their local areas – leaving behind their jobs, children’s schools and support networks.’
Polly added: ‘All political parties must make the choice to ending the housing emergency – they must fully commit to building 90,000 new genuinely affordable social rent homes a year for 10 years.’
Image: Uta Scholl
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