New homes are needed, and they are needed more in some places than in others.
Successive governments have repeatedly acknowledged the need for new housing, setting targets with no real eye for how to achieve them. Often we hear that hundreds of thousands of new homes must be built somewhere, but nowhere will accept them. Meanwhile, the very local authorities that attract the most development also resist that development. Therefore, we should stop asking local authorities “will you build new homes”, and instead ask “what would it take to get you to build new homes”.
So, invite councils/local authorities to a reverse-auction: rather than “how much money would I pay”, it’s “how little money would I accept”, and instead of things you want, it’s things you don’t want (or claim you don’t want).
Each lot in the auction is an *obligation* to build 1 house, or 10 houses, or maybe 100 houses. Starting bids are *negative*, and local authorities bid each other *up*. As a starting point, houses might be priced at 5 times the average cost to build a house, so that if the Edinburgh council area wanted this money (about £1.25 million), they’d have to build 1 house. Then, if Barking and Dagenham council wants money, they’d bid it up to £1.20 million for that 1 house, and so on (assuming there are no lots left at starting bids). Edinburgh council might then say “well we don’t need the money that badly anyway, you can have the house”. Because it’s an auction, councils who really want housing and money would get plenty of housing and money; those who want housing OR money would get a bit; and those councils which resist housebuilding, and have more than enough funding, could simply sit the whole thing out.
This has several advantages:
1) As stated, everyone gets what they want: councils that want money and housing get a bunch of both, others get a little of both, others are happy with none. The auction efficiently determines what housebuilding is worth to each council.
2) When too much housing is constructed in one place (e.g. mid-century city-centre council housing, or modern luxury boondoggles), it creates homogenous places where people don’t want to live. By contrast, this proposal spreads housing very widely, throughout the country, so most councils will just build a little, and those that do build a lot will be compensated to offset the possible disadvantages of over-building.
3) Councils have faced severe restrictions to their budgets for decades now. This is a great way to give them money outside the poorly-designed and regressive Council Tax system,
4) What is built can be sold or rented, allowing this proposal to pay for itself over time at the council level. Essentially, it’s an investment where the national government takes the risks, while local governments (which can tolerate less risk) accept the rewards. If the price tag is too high, the national government could get some of the sale or rental income back (although it could just as easily raise debt, which is a power local authorities lack).
5) Just build more houses! Everyone knows we need them.
That’s my proposal. I don’t think the government would need to specify much about the houses themselves, except maybe by defining the minimum size and number of separate rooms in “1 house” (after all, you wouldn’t want a 3-bedroom house getting labelled as 3 houses). Obviously, you’d also need to check that they’re actually building the housing, maybe work starts within 6 months and finishes in 3 years. Beyond that, the design, quality, and location of the housing can be determined by the combined political and economic pressures that councils will face when drafting their plans.
Thanks for considering my idea!
Best wishes,
Jake
1472-11