Vampire diaries

The maths involved in the CLG committee’s new report on the financing of new housing supply is depressingly simple.

Add newly arising need to cope with population growth (232,000 homes a year on the latest estimate) to the backlog of existing need (1.99 million households in 2009), then take away the completions in 2011 (109,000) and you are left with a huge gap in provision. Even if private housebuilders succeed in increasing their output from last year’s miserable 82,000 to the maximum they managed over the last 20 years of 150,000 (a very big if) the gap will still be huge and the backlog will still be growing.

Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing.