Planning

We believe that the levels of house building set out in the Barker Review represent the minimum numbers of properties that should be built each year.

The Barker Review of Housing Supply was commissioned by Gordon Brown in 2003 to investigate how housing supply impacts upon economic and social well-being. It found that high demand coupled with low numbers of homes being built accounted for high house prices, and that this was beginning to have a negative impact upon both quality of life and economic competitiveness. The Review estimated that to bring house price inflation in line with the EU average of 1.1% per year an additional 310,000 new homes should be built each year.

When the Barker Review was published in 2004, 190,425 properties were built – by 2006 this had increased to 213,717.

Additional house building is not always popular with people who live already live in the areas where new building is taking place, and political will is required to overcome this opposition. However, these concerns can be overcome if building is done in a sensitive way which both reflects local needs and also the character of existing housing developments. As such, new housing should not 'swamp’ existing developments; and supporting infrastructure (such as schools, health care facilities and transport links) should be developed to take account of the additional demands that will be created by new housing.