More house building means more empty houses
The government’s build build build program will create thousands of empty houses on land we need for nature and food production says Sue Roberts in a letter to the Wallingford Herald.
National housing policy calls for 300,000 new dwellings annually in England compared to only 157,000 new households being formed every year. So nearly one in two new houses could be unoccupied. Older houses are likely to stand empty because government subsidies push first-time buyers towards new build.
In South Oxfordshire three out of four new houses might end up empty as the local plan requires 32,000 new homes by 2035 but in that same period only 8000 new households are likely to be formed.