Housing targets out the window

Some readers may remember the heady days of 2017, when Nicola Sturgeon was in her pomp and her SNP satraps in Edinburgh optimistically declared they would be building 10,000 affordable homes in five years and 20,000 in ten.

Even before the pandemic it was wildly optimistic, and by the time Covid struck three years later 3500 had been built, a creditable number but well short of the target. Since 2017, a total of 8705 have been completed, so the 10,000 goal might be achieved, just in double the time.

The declaration of a housing emergency last year has changed nothing, and new reports before councillors this week show just how difficult it is to even get halfway to what’s required, with the latest Housing Need and Demand Assessment estimating a minimum demand for 36,000 homes in the next 16 years, 24,000 of them affordable. It could, however, be as many as 52,000 dwellings, with 35,000 affordable.

The latest estimate is for 7100 completions in the next five years, but the rate is slowing and only 860 will be completed in 2024-25, so the programme will need to be super-charged to meet the minimum estimate.

But the warning flags are being waved vigorously, particularly about rising construction costs, up from an average of just under £158,000 per affordable home in 2020-21 to over £230,000 last year, a 40 per cent jump. Government funding can’t keep pace with that sort of increase, and when budgets are just back to where they were last year, there’s no chance.