The UK’s Housing Crisis

It’s no secret that the UK’s housing market is in a dismal state, but let's not point fingers at the planners and bureaucrats alone – they’ve surely had their work cut out. Of course, this wouldn’t be the fault of our beloved “do-gooders,” those well-meaning souls who’ve barely stepped foot into a construction site or have the faintest idea what urban logistics entails. Their ideological vision is far too lofty for mere brick and mortar concerns. What was and is more important is that the level of diversity in the building authorities is only equal to the level of political stupidity. "In this regard, the statistics are balanced."

Now, much like our friends across the Channel in Germany, where the housing market is similarly tied up in red tape and good intentions, there’s a select group of people (who may or may not have ever worked a day in their lives in city planning or real estate development) who seem to believe that building homes for a growing population is best tackled through... well, let’s say, “creative” planning strategies.

These planners, bless their hearts, have their priorities straight. Instead of looking at the increasing demand for homes and wondering, “How can we accommodate that?”, they prefer to sit around discussing the environmental impact of a single pothole or the effect of a new housing estate on the migratory patterns of local squirrels. It’s a noble pursuit, of course, but not exactly conducive to solving the housing crisis.

You see, the UK’s housing woes are mostly down to planning – or rather, the chaotic absence of it. And while housebuilders might not be entirely off the hook, they’ve certainly been handed a pretty impossible task. How can you expect anyone to build new homes when the rules are constantly changing, approval processes move slower than a Monday morning, and every minor decision is vetoed in the name of some illusory, greener future?

When ideology triumphs over reason, you get what we have here: a broken system where everyone wrings their hands about the lack of affordable housing, but no one seems to want to get their hands dirty actually building any. And why would they? The ideological fortress of these well-intentioned planners, far removed from the realities of the housing market, offers plenty of shelter from practical considerations. They’re busy fighting for abstract ideals, while the rest of us just want somewhere decent to live.

Ah, but why let practicality get in the way of a good narrative? After all, there’s a certain romance in planning for a utopia no one will ever be able to afford to live in.