As we are catapulted towards another general election, likely to be in 2024, our broken housing system is going to be one of the dominant issues.

The housing crisis exists because house prices are too high; rent costs are out of control; our social housing system is not fit for purpose; there is still no remedy for post-Grenfell cladding deficiencies; we are burdened with a draconian leasehold legacy and the list of problems goes on and on.

LACK OF HOMES

Many of these issues stem from one place: a lack of homes being built. Expect to hear a procession of irritating politicians this conference season stating emphatically that ‘we need to build more’.

It’s a pathetic, insulting attempt to look as though something will be done.”

This statement of the bleeding obvious is, seemingly, the only answer that the Conservatives and Labour have to offer. It is not an answer at all; it is a simplistic statement that sets out the conclusion without any methodology attached. It’s a pathetic, insulting attempt to look as though something will be done. Instead, it’s all mouth and no substance.

The lack of housing supply cannot keep up with rising demand fuelled by a combination of longer lives, positive net immigration, an increase in single-occupancy and artificially low interest rates.

All these factors have conspired to push house prices up 220% since 2000 and up 24% even since the start of the pandemic.

BIGGEST OBSTACLE

We can start building the 300,000 homes Britain needs a year by removing the biggest obstacle that has stood in the way of building sufficient homes for decades: the politicians themselves.

It is their short-termism, their cynical headline-grabbing announcements, empty policies and can-kicking that has resulted in our country being short of new homes by more than 100,000 each year.

To put things into perspective, in 1968 we built 425,830 homes.”

To put things into perspective, in 1968 we built 425,830 homes. During the 1980s this had dropped to 213,000 houses a year. In the 1990s it was 190,000 a year.

In the past 10 years we’ve built just 170,000 homes a year on average. As each decade passes the problem of under-supply gets worse. Yet our political leaders use housing as a means of show-boating. Increasingly, promises and pledges to solve Britain’s housing crisis have evaporated almost as soon as they are made.

If we are serious about improving supply then we must liberate the planning process from the suffocation of Westminster, County Hall and town halls.

The worst hands in which to place our housing needs are those of our politicians and civil servants.

GENUINE COMPETITION

We must introduce genuine competition to the housebuilding industry.

At present, only 10 property developers are responsible for delivering about 70% of all housing in the UK.

This is great for their shareholders but less so for smaller builders and society generally because it means they have too much power over how many houses get built – not just for private sale but also for social rent, shared ownership and affordable purchase too.

The solution could be the creation of a national development corporation.

TAXPAYER OWNED

Owned by the taxpayer, run by experienced property professionals and held to account by a board of scrutiny and a combination of professional and public-sector stakeholders, it should be publicly owned but run as a private entity with a 10-year mandate – a strategy and a budget to build the right homes in the right places – then left alone to get on with it.

As this would be a public body building a combination of council houses and homes for private sale at profit it would also have access to all national and local government spare land assets on which to build, such as surplus local authority land, redundant NHS land and empty Ministry of Defence (MoD) premises. The MoD has more than 8,000 empty homes and local councils own 1.3 million acres of land, much of it doing nothing.

We just need to join the dots. Simple really. A bit like our politicians.

Russell Quirk was the founder and chief executive of online estate agency Emoov. He runs property PR agency Proper PR and is a regular presenter on TalkTV. A similar version of this article first appeared in The Sunday Times.