The Lords Built Environment Committee has called on the Government to address barriers to building much-needed new homes.
In a report, ‘Meeting housing demand’, it said too many people are living in expensive, unsuitable, and poor-quality homes.
To tackle the housing crisis, the cross-party committee said skills shortages needed to be addressed and planning departments given more resources, and that money spent on housing benefit should be invested in increasing the social housing stock over time.
It also said the country needed more specialist and mainstream housing suitable for older people.
Cllr David Renard, LGA Housing Spokesperson, said: “We fully support the committee’s call for more investment in increasing social housing stock if we are to tackle the housing crisis.
“By giving councils the powers and resources to build 100,000 much-needed social homes a year, we can help the Government meet its annual target of 300,000 new homes.
“This should include further reform of Right to Buy.
“While planning is not the barrier to house building, with nine in 10 planning applications approved by councils, the committee is right to highlight the need for planning authorities to be adequately resourced.
“Developers also need to be incentivised to build housing more quickly, with more than one million homes given planning permission in the past decade not yet built, while an additional one million homes allocated in local plans are waiting to be brought forward by developers for planning permission.”
