The situation is so dire that, even when faced with rocketing mortgage rates, house prices have only fallen by 2pc over the last year on the official measure. Between high prices and high interest rates, the affordability of new housing has never been worse.
One might imagine that, in these circumstances, the authorities would be pulling out all the stops to make it easier to build houses. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Somewhere in the heart of the Government, more and more environmental measures are being promoted which stack the deck against economic development.
Just last year, the Government U-turned on plans to scrap European Union “nutrient neutrality rules” – environmental regulations that restrict where houses can be built by placing an obligation on builders to ensure there is no nutrient pollution in areas already suffering a degree of it. This rule held back tens of thousands of homes for little environmental benefit.
In 2020, one large developer was fined £600,000 after destroying the home of a single bat. Research for the Home Builders Federation suggests that as many as 45,000 new homes per year may not be delivered because of the nutrient, water and recreational applications of the Habitats Regulations.
Now builders have the Biodiversity Net Gain policy to contend with. This aims to ensure that developments requiring planning from this month onwards will leave the habitat for wildlife in a better state than it was before development.
Species decline is a serious concern, but it must be balanced with the need to fix our chronic housing shortage. And as a recent House of Lords report recently pointed out, the impact of sudden and new environmental regulations can be extremely costly. So costly, in fact, both financially and through delays to projects, that they dissuade developers from seeking planning permission altogether.
