The Future of UK Housing: Downsizing to Development

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A vision for the UK housing market with Emma Fletcher, Development Director at Hyde Housing Association and Anna Clare Harper.

In Anna's words:

Following a Cambridge University Land Society and Joseph Rowntree Foundation event on housing policy, Emma Fletcher and I were asked to write a paper detailing a realistic vision for the UK housing market, and what policies could be used to achieve that vision.

Emma is a Development Director at Hyde, a Housing Association responsible for 50,000 homes, and Chair of Swaffham Prior Community Land Trust, which created the first village-wide renewable energy system in the UK.

The paper is being published this week, and includes an overall vision, as well as tenure-specific objectives and policy recommendations. 

Points include:

• The impact of short termism and vested interests on housing market inequalities 
• The problem with focusing on new homes, since 80% of the homes we use in 2050 are already built
• Policy ideas such as how to incentivise downsizing, for reasons including the fact that 3.6 million homes across the country owned by over 65s have at least two spare rooms.

Paper: https://www.culandsoc.com/articles/whitehall-group-whitepaper-on-housing-policy-april-2023-2/ 

Guest website: https://www.hyde-housing.co.uk/

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmafletchercambridge/

Host website: annaclareharper.com 

Host LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclareharper/