Housing minister targets 1 million new homes by 2020

Planning and housing minister Brandon Lewis has said the government aims to build 1 million new homes over the next five years

Lewis revealed the target during an interview on the BBC’s Inside Out programme due to be broadcast tonight which focuses on the scale of the housing crisis (BBC One, 19.30, 21 September).

The show includes new research from the National Housing Federation highlighting the massive shortfall in the number of new homes built in England between 2011 and 2014. According to the federation, just 457,490 homes constructed over the four year period- a 516,510 deficit compared with its own needs evaluation.

The National Housing Federation estimated that 974,000 homes – effectively 245,000 a year – should have been constructed during that time to meet the country’s housing needs.

Speaking about the government’s plans to tackle the crisis, Lewis told BBC Inside Out: ‘By the end of this Parliament [2020], success I think would mean that we have seen a build in total of something like a million homes.’

The target means the government is still only predicting around 200,000 new homes will be built each year.

Gill Payne, director of policy and external affairs, said: ‘We haven’t built enough homes in this country for decades, and if the gap between the number of households forming and the number of new homes being built continues to grow, we are in danger of not being able to house our children.’