by Ben Wakeling
Last week saw the publication of three separate reports from three different organisations on the theme of resolving the ongoing housing crisis.
First, the London School of Economics published A Road Map to a Coherent Housing Policy, urging politicians and the Bank of England to work together to stimulate the housing market.
Next, the National Housing Federation published Let’s fix the housing crisis: Delivering a long-term plan for housing; a six-point plan for the Government, outlining strategies to tackle the chronic shortage of homes in the UK.
This was swiftly followed by the Housing Forum’s Manifesto for Housing, which calls for whichever party holds power by the end of the year to deliver a long-term strategy for the sector.
Key organisations within the housing industry should come together to produce once united report, setting out clearly and concisely what the Government needs to do
These three reports are the latest additions to an ever-growing pile of documents, plans and dossiers published by housing bodies across the country on an almost weekly basis; reams and reams of paper containing suggestions, recommendations and proposals to the Government. Individually they contain concise and well-researched points: but together they are simply added to a wider, often-incoherent and unintelligible noise.
It’s akin to a crowd of like-minded people all yelling their own opinions at once. If you’re the person they’re yelling at, you’re catching snippets of sentences, the occasional phrase, the overall sense of the message; but it’s a fog of words, lacking direction and focus, and therefore not sinking in.
A collective voice is a more effective voice. Key organisations within the housing industry should come together to produce once united report, setting out clearly and concisely what the Government needs to do to instigate meaningful change within the sector and set it on a long-term course of action; one which will eventually repair broken systems and ongoing crises in a sector currently suffocating in red tape and political point-scoring.
This primary report can then be the catalyst to other splinter reports by individual industry bodies, which elaborate on the points made in the umbrella document, but always link back to it.
One combined, unified message, instead of a hundred separate voices; a silver bullet, instead of a spray of pellets. It has to be the most effective way to get politicians and ministers to sit up and listen, and the first step in turning a rather large ship around.
Housing View 