Geoff and Sandra are a fairly average couple. They met in their late 20s and got married in their early 30s. Like 30 per cent of first-time buyers, they bought their first house at the same time.
Squeezed by interest rates, they decided that they would keep their mortgage repayments as low as possible. So, thanks to the benevolence of HSBC bank, they got a mortgage.
Now let’s listen to their conversation over breakfast in the year 2063.
‘Well, this is a big year for you Geoff – next year is your 75th and I’ve planned a nice party for all the family, children, grandchildren and all.’
‘It’s bigger in other ways too’, says Geoff, ‘it’s the last instalment of the 40-year mortgage we took out in 2023. At last we can call this OUR home.’
‘Even better,’ says Sandra, ‘we’ve also paid off our 35-year student loans. Now we’re debt free and ready to really enjoy our retirement.’
Geoff smiled to himself and thought ‘It’s just as well that people are living longer.’
How have we come to this situation when in the 1970s, Sandra and Geoff would have married in their mid-20s and have bought a reasonably priced semi on a standard 25-year mortgage?
We all know the answer – lack of supply. But what’s the solution? It is not a bad strategy to do exactly the opposite of what Liz Truss advised when she was briefly Prime Minister: ‘I want to abolish the top-down Whitehall-inspired Stalinist housing targets,’ she said.
She was wrong. Wrong. Wrong. What we need is a national housing policy from government and it has to be big and brave and not Stalinistic – local authorities can still have their say on the detail, but within the bigger picture.
It has to rationalise the planning and legal systems and it has to look for big developments – think Milton Keynes – not picking off 50 flats on a brownfield site here and there.
We’ll probably have to wait and see if Labour get elected and let the fierce and fiery Angela Rayner loose on the problem.
Have a good weekend.
Tom
by the Planning PR guru 