The new Labour Government hasn’t exactly been slow out of the blocks: even though its first budget won’t happen until 30 October, Angela Rayner (the Deputy Prime Minister) has already committed to building 1.5 Million new homes over the course of this Parliament, and the Chancellor (Rachel Reeves) announced her own plans to index link rents on social housing over a ten year period, removing the existing cap and giving landlords greater incentive to invest in new developments. The Reeves Plan (www.ft.com/content/e2546c45) might sound counterintuitive: why, after all, will it help those already in social housing to increase their monthly rent? But the stark reality is that private and public landlords won’t invest in new stock if rental margins are kept artificially low. That’s why the National Housing Federation and the Local Government Association (two ends of the political spectrum) have been lobbying for an extended rent settlement since Labour was last in office more than a decade ago. In the turbulent intervening period, spanning Cameron to Sunak (remember them?), those voices mostly fell on stoney ground …but, happily, someone now seems to be listening.
And what’s particularly interesting about the Government’s first tentative forays into what’s already a housing crisis of epic proportions is that they seem to combine an overarching level of ambition with detailed attention to policy, and that, to say the least, is unusual. Digital age politics tend to veer away from hard targets because they’re too often missed, and writing detailed policy in advance too often delivers a hostage to fortune. That’s why no Conservative Administration since Theresa May (remember her?) set any affordable housing targets at all, and when she did it…well, she hopelessly underdelivered. In 2017, the May Administration promised to create 250,000 new social housing units but delivered only 12,500 by 2020 (by which time Boris was in Office, and the less said about what he did, the better). In the entire period of the Sunak Administration (with no targets at all), 63,605 new affordable homes were built (https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/).
In that context, Labour’s commitment to building 1.5 Million new homes in less than five years seems nothing short of evangelical in its ambition: that’s more than nineteen times the number of new units delivered by previous administrations over an equivalent ten-year period.
But before you grab the wrong stick and start beating around the bush with it, this is most certainly not a matter of party politics. Right now, in the UK today, 318,000 of our fellow citizens don’t have a roof over their heads (www.shelter.org.uk): many find whatever comfort they can on cold pavements and hard kerbstones, and many more creep from sofa to sofa as their welcome wears out. In fact, 7,290 households are currently at serious risk of becoming homeless, 3,795 are in priority housing need, and 3,279 households are living in temporary accommodation. That certainly isn’t a party political matter: it’s a social crisis, which is why the last agreed statement made by Rishi Sunak and Kier Starmer before the election (not exactly a pair prone to agree on anything) was that Britain needs to build more affordable housing. And, in a nutshell, that’s why the twin threads of policy we’ve seen so far from the Labour Government are so welcome. But still, we can do so much more…
Take, for example, Modular Construction: it’s not only the most cost efficient and flexible building option on the market today (by far), it’s also the most sustainable and environmentally friendly too. Modular technologies can create new homes for those in need nearly twice as fast as traditional construction ever could and at 40% of the cost of bricks and mortar buildings. So, if we need to deliver new homes faster than before (as we do), why not harness the power of modular technologies to get it done quicker?
And, of course, in these fast-evolving times, the whole process is all about better digital connectivity and building back greener too. Why can’t we do that as well? The fact is we can, and the tools to do it are at our disposal already. It’s time to make a better start and end the scourge of homelessness forever. I do so hope Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner are reading this…
Modulex Construction is a ConstrucTech Company working at the vanguard of emerging global construction, making use of 3D volumetric steel modular techniques: harnessing the power of emerging technologies, including AI, Blockchain and IoT, to meet burgeoning housing and infrastructure needs in developing and emerging markets. And when it comes to digital connectivity and greener development, two other members of the Red Ribbon Family, Ribbon and Phoenix Green, are also at the cutting edge of their respective sectors. Isn’t it about time you found out more?
We’re beyond building back better…we now need to build back quicker, more effectively and more sustainably than ever before.