Bexley Borough – Are we Building Enough New Homes?

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I miss the good old days of George Osborne as Chancellor, with his hard hat and hi-vis jacket. He must have visited every new home building site in the UK with his trademark attire! For the last few years, the nearest Philip Hammond has got to donning a ‘Bob the Builder’ outfit was at his grandchild’s birthday party. However, with what appears to be a change in focus by the Tories to ensure they return to power in 2022, they seem to have fallen in love with house building again, with the Chancellor’s promise to create 300,000 new households in a year.
Nationally, the number of new homes created has topped 217,344 in the last year, the highest since the financial crash of 2007/8. Looking closer to home, there were 764 ‘net additional dwellings’ in total in the last 12 months in the London Borough Bexley Council area, a decent increase of 79% on the 2010 figure. The figures show that 104% of this additional housing is found in new build properties. In total, 796 new dwellings were built over the last year in Bexley Borough, and 8 dwellings were added as a result of converting houses into flats. While these all added to the total housing stock in the Bexley Borough area, there were also 13 demolitions and the loss of 27 properties to change of use.

Net additional dwellings in Bexley Borough in the last 12 months
New build
Conversions
Change of use
Demolitions
Net Additions
796
8
-27
-13
764
With the scarcity of building land available locally (or the builders being very slow to build on what they have, for fear of flooding the market), it was good to see how many developers reutilised vacant office space as residential homes in the local council area. Converting offices and shops to residential use will be vital in helping to solve the Bexley Borough housing crisis, especially as the level of building has hardly been spectacular over the last seven years, as the graph illustrates.

Following the autumn budget, Theresa May and Philip Hammond have set out their stall, with housing as their key focus. I was glad to see the Government introducing a variety of changes to improve housing, including more funding for the supply side and the injection of urgency into the planning system. The biggest question is just where the Government is going to build all these new houses. This might be a topic for another article!
Nonetheless, the focus on the housing market by the Tories is good news for all homeowners and buy-to-let landlords, as it will encourage more fluidity in the market in the longer term, sharing the wealth and benefits of homeownership. However, in the short term, demand still outstrips supply for homes, which will mean continued upward pressures on rents for tenants.

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