Impossible? The housing target Gove and Sunak must hit

Research from a property developer suggests that the government needs to deliver an average of 67,500 new homes a quarter by the end of next year if it wants to hit its 1m target by the end of this Parliament. 

Last week the government revealed it was focussing on brownfield building to deliver the one million new homes; however, analysis by the Stripe Property Group has revealed that in order to do so, it would have to produce almost 68,000 new homes every three months.

This is an achievement the government has never so far managed during its time in power. 

Stripe analysed new dwellings delivery since the current government took charge in December 2019 which shows that, in approximately three years and six months, just 594,805 new homes have been delivered across England. 

The best performance was seen during the final quarter of 2020 when just 51,370 new homes were delivered.

With just a year and a half left for the Government to reach its target (by the next election which is scheduled to be held no later than Jan 2025), a further 405,195 new homes are required to hit the one million threshold by the end of Dec 2024. 

Stripe managing director James Forrester says: “The government is notoriously poor at keeping its promises when it comes to housing delivery and time and time again we’ve seen targets set, only for them to fall by the wayside further down the line. At the same time, local councils are making it harder and harder for house builders to comply with the masses of red tape, all of which increases the prices for the end user. 

“Given the fact that less than 600,000 new homes have been delivered in the last three and a half years or so, we can’t imagine that the target of one million new homes by the end of next year will come to fruition either. 

“So we can expect to hear more excuses from Rishi Sunak and co come the end of Parliament, as well as more smoke and mirrors around the delivery of new housing, no doubt fudging the figures with new additional dwellings data to make it appear as though they’ve delivered on their word.”