Lord Best says house-builders will not solve the housing problem

Local Government Association president Richard Best says Wales needs to start building more affordable homes.

Lord Best said UK demand for housing was far out-stripping supply, with demand each year for 210,000 homes, but only 165,000 being built.

He said it was "foolish" to rely on house-builders to fill the gap.

Lord Best told a BBC Wales and Regeneration Institute Lecture in April that house-builders would not "solve the problem which is not in their interest to solve".

He said house-builders did not want to see prices falling, and that it was not in their profit-making interest to see this happening.

Lord Best also argued that in the past, half of the house-building used to be provided by the public sector, but today the tap had been stopped.

We now have 40% of people living in many communities who are under the age of 40 who are not going to be able to buy Lord Best

While councils used to build up to 250,000 houses a year, today that figure stood at almost none.

Lord Best, a former director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, said house prices had been pushed away from affordability as people hoarded investments in houses.

"We now have 40% of people living in many communities who are under the age of 40 who are not going to be able to buy because their incomes are not big enough and who aren't going to be able to get social housing," he said.

Crucial crossroads

"We have been more or less OK with this over the past years, because people have been postponing buying, but people can't postpone forever."

Lord Best urged extra resources in the form of social housing grants, and believed there would be, particularly because increased house prices would be bad for the economy.

He welcomed the commitment of the Welsh Assembly Government to affordable housing and that government land in Wales would go towards social housing.

Peter Williams, chair of Thames Valley Housing Association, which manages more than 10,000 homes, said the tide was beginning to turn and that people were now starting to value housing associations.

Dr Williams said Wales was at a crucial crossroads on social housing, and housing associations should not be less enterprising.