NEWS RELEASE

TWO NEW LONDONS, 163 SLOUGHS – UK SET FOR OVER SEVEN MILLION MORE HOUSES

The new housing projections published today (March 14, 2006) by the Government were described as “alarming” by the Optimum Population Trust, which campaigns for a sustainable population for the UK. “It’s now clear that population growth is the main force driving housing demand and the UK’s population is spiralling out of control,” Valerie Stevens, OPT co-chair, said. “Yet for population as well as for housing, Ministers are still ‘predicting and providing’ – in other words, shrugging their shoulders and looking the other way.”

OPT calculations suggest that the new figures, which project that household numbers in England will increase by 4.8 million between 2003 and 2026, an increase of 23 per cent, seriously understate the scale of the problem facing the UK’s environment.

In the country as a whole, it calculates, over seven million new houses and flats will be required over the next six decades if the “predict and provide” approach to housing continues and no action is taken to limit population growth. This represents a 28 per cent increase in the housing stock.

This amount of extra housing (over 7.3 million dwellings) is equivalent to more than twice the number of houses in London ( 3.1 million houses in 2003) and 163 times the number in Slough (45,000 houses, 2001 Census).

The projections, published today by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), are for England and only go up to 2026. They are based on increased population and household formation rates – including a drop in the projected average household size to 2.1. However, forecasts published last October by the Government Actuary’s Department show that the UK’s population, previously predicted to “peak” after 2050 and then to start declining, will now go on rising to the end of the projection period, 2074.

Between now and 2074, UK population is forecast to grow by around 10.5 million, more than a sixth or 17 per cent. OPT calculations suggest that, on the household formation assumptions published today by the Government, the UK will then need almost 33.7 million dwellings, as opposed to the current figure of an estimated 26.3 million – over seven million more than at present. Even then, there is no guarantee that population growth, and the resulting demand for new housing, will come to an end.

The Government acknowledges that population is now the major cause of household growth and housing demand. The ODPM says it accounts for around 123,000 of the 209,000 new households being formed each year - 59 per cent, compared to 19 per cent attributable to changing age distribution and 21 per cent to increasing household formation. Some 60 per cent of the projected household growth is within the East, London, South East, and the South West.

“The ODPM’s revised projections for England are alarming enough but for the UK as a whole the longer-term outlook for quality of life and environmental impact is genuinely frightening,” Valerie Stevens added. “We’re already facing severe congestion and water rationing in the South of England and greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. With another two Londons or 163 Sloughs in prospect, the Government’s supposed commitment to sustainable development looks increasingly like a bad joke.”