Four new action groups launched to tackle UK housing crisis

Led by Nationwide Building Society, the mutual approach to solving problems in the housing system comes as the pandemic has exacerbated longstanding issues around the affordability, accessibility and sustainability of homes. It is hoped that the four action groups will find ways of building more homes, delivering more of the right types of homes and encouraging more green homes, ensuring everyone can have a place more than fit to call home, whether owned or rented.

According to Nationwide's new report, nearly two thirds (63%) of people say the UK has a housing crisis, rising to 71% of private renters.

The action group members include: ARLA Propertymark, Barratt Developments, Building Societies Association, Chartered Institute of Housing, Connells Group, countryside charity CPRE, Energiesprong UK, E.ON, Federation of Master Builders, Homes for Good, Lord Best, Metropolitan Thames Valley, Midas Construction, Mi-Space, MoneySavingExpert.com, Nationwide Foundation, NRLA, PricedOut, Rockwool, Shelter, Switchd, Trustmark, and the UK Green Building Council.

The four action groups encompass:

1. New homes: Increasing the number of new homes built across all tenures, ensuring they meet the needs of first-time buyers, home movers and downsizers, and meeting high energy-efficiency standards.

2. Green homes: Delivering practical solutions and policies to help people green their homes. Building awareness of the problem, closing the skills gap and making sure it’s fairly financed.

3. Rental: Creating a private rented sector (PRS) that works for the mutual good of landlords and renters potentially including better access to justice, a national landlord register and reform of tenancy deposit.

4. Delivery: Speeding up the delivery of new homes by removing inefficiencies in the system, building trust between parties and adopting more agile approaches.

Nationwide is calling for members, experts and the wider public to give their views on what is broken in the housing market and what potential solutions there are by emailing futureofhome@nationwide.co.uk.

Sara Bennison, chief product and marketing officer at Nationwide, said: “The pandemic served to highlight the importance of home for all of us although, as our Future of Home research showed, it also exacerbated many of the issues which have bedevilled the housing system for years. I have been so heartened by the generosity of time and spirit shown by all the organisations who joined us for a series of roundtables on the subject. The challenge was how can we move from rehearsing the problems of the past to coming up with practical, workable solutions in the future. By thinking about the whole system together and not just the individual components where each organisation plays, we are genuinely excited by the ideas these action groups can table for the mutual good of all.”