And so it begins

A new government, yes, and what excitement, eh? Then it begins - the shrieks for more money from this or that sector:

Labour will miss its target of delivering 1.5m new homes this parliament without an emergency cash injection into the affordable housing sector, providers have warned.

Housing associations and councils have written to deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, saying her promise to deliver “the biggest boost to affordable housing in a generation” will be impossible unless there are urgent interventions to fix the financial pressures providers face.

Our word, this is a surprise. More of everyone elses’ money simply must be poured into our, our very vital and special, sector. Well, perhaps not so much of a surprise, the only piece of news here is who has been first out of the blocks.

There is, of course, an alternative solution:

….cash from rents was currently not enough to cover its costs.

Umm, rents could rise?

….the provider had stopped buying new sites because….

Or, possibly, lower the cost of new sites. Which really does mean that supply side reform of blowing up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. Proper blow up - kablooie.

For as we’re being told here, even the taxpayer assisted social housing sector cannot afford current land with planning permission prices. The solution is therefore to flood the zone with land with planning permission and so reduce those prices. This then makes housing cheaper for everyone, of every type of tenure. Further, we don’t need to increase the subsidy to the social housing sector and, even, the housing benefit bill will fall.

In fact, if we really flood the zone with land for building we’ll not need to have a social housing sector at all - for housing will be cheap for all.

Amazin’ what a bit of supply side reform can achieve, no?

Tim Worstall