Where do the houses go?
The phrase “housing crisis” has become the default way we approach housing these days, and not just in Bristol. The Bristol Post even have a ‘housing crisis’ news tag, which you can scroll through at your leisure.
The council housing waiting list is over 16,000, according to the current administration, and targets have been set against housing. These would have led to 2000 homes a year, 800 affordable in their first administration if they’d been met (they weren’t).
The new targets for the second Labour term are for 1000 affordable homes a year. The implication in these targets is that with more [affordable] housing, fewer people will be on the waiting list, and this will reduce the ‘crisis.
But what is an affordable house? For one, it includes housing that is clearly unaffordable; e.g. housing sold at 20% below market rate or shared ownership.
But it’s clear the mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, finds housing important. It can also be seen by the constant reference to it whenever he’s mentioned and at the speeches he makes.
In a promotion for the 2022 forum of mayors event to be held by UNECE in April, Rees’ bio includes that he’d “overseen the building of almost 7000 homes”. This is 2000 fewer homes he claimed for in May 2021, pre-election, and compared to his biography on the council website (first job) (his Plimsoll Productions bio for his second job says 7000, as does his LGA bio, third job).
So how many houses were built in Bristol? Was it 7000 or 9000?
Fact check — has Labour built almost 7000 or 9000 houses in the mayor’s first administration?
The number of housing units built is closer to 7000 according to Bristol City Council’s scrutiny; there were 6783 housing completions up to 2020 (all completions including student accommodation etc.) https://bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/total-number-new-homes-built-5013548.amp
A second check against central government figures shows similar numbers, at 6598 dwellings.
I can’t find any numbers that add up to 9000.
Fact check 2 — Will the tenure of these houses reduce the housing waiting list?
In 2009, when there were 184,167 dwelling units in Bristol, the private sector provided 78% of them and the local authority provided 15%. Housing associations provided around 5.7%.
By 2020, the overall number of housing had increased by 17,773 to 201,940 and by now 80% were owned by the private sector. The local authority had lost 2 percentage points of housing; this equates to 1588 dwelling units.
From 2016, first year of Rees’ administration, to now, 6598 units have been built. Whether any new council homes have been built or not, the net result over time has been a loss of council homes. Under the first Rees administration, 533 homes were lost from local authority ownership.
Right to Buy sees about 150 council homes lost each year, and this offsets any new homes.
If we see the indexed rate of change, the biggest increases went to the housing associations who increased their stock by 20% but they started from a smaller base of numbers; 10,472 in 2009 to 12,533 in 2020. They own less that half the number of council homes.
Looking at changes just over Rees’ first terms, we see the same patterns but with a smaller rate of growth.
The council kept losing housing units, housing associations saw the greatest percentage growth, while the private sector saw the biggest actual growth in numbers.
From 2009 to 2020, 97% of the new dwelling units went to the private sector.
Pre-Rees, the percentage was 96.5% from 2009 to 2015.
Post-Rees the percentage of houses that went to the private sector was 99%.
As the data shows, nearly all new housing stock has gone to the private sector, and this is especially true of the housing numbers Rees adds to his various biographies.
And what’s happened in the private sector? In the south west, house prices have risen from an average £170,000 (post-2008 crash) in 2009 to almost £320,000 in 2022 (source). This 88% increase has not been reflected in wages, which have fallen by 2% since 2008. This has led to an increase in the housing waiting list because people are struggling to afford to buy a house, and even rent a house.
But that’s another story for another day.
For now, let’s remember that 99% of the houses the mayor brags about have gone to not only developer profits but also to those of landlords.