The United Kingdom has some of the least affordable housing of any country in the world, with median homes costing more than five times median incomes. In the United States, only California and Hawaii have less affordable housing. A new report estimates that the U.K. needs 4.3 million homes to restore affordability, but the country’s planning system prevents those homes from being built.
Click image to download a 5.1-MB PDF of this 65-page report.
The report, which is published by a think tank called Centre for Cities, correctly places the blame for the state of the country’s housing on the Town & Country Planning Act of 1947. This law took away development rights from every private landowner in the country and only allowed new development if it complied with local and regional land-use plans. Continue reading
