Over the past few weeks, the Bidwells Planning team has been analysing the key parties' policies and manifestos for the Election Special Planning Commentary publication.
Yet despite the housing crisis being one of the biggest challenges facing the UK, not one party has drawn together a clear and coherent strategy to solve it, despite the fact they have all "committed" to a dramatic increase in the supply of housing.
David Cameron launched the Conservatives' General Election manifesto, with a pledge to extend the Right-to-Buy scheme for housing association tenants in England. The PM said that up to 1.3 million tenants could buy their homes at a discount as a result, but Labour said the Right-to-Buy pledge would cost £4.5bn and was "unfunded".
All the three key parties have pledged to deliver between 200,000 – 300,000 new homes, but housing construction is already lagging demand, following a 30 year under supply.
Mike said: "Housing is a long term issue which cannot and should not be managed by short term initiatives. None of the major political parties appear to have a credible solution. The housing shortage is one of the biggest issues the country faces – yet they haven't given any hint of a coherent strategic plan to tackle it.
"The parties need to be bold. They realise the scale of the problem facing us – but they need to take new measures to help speed up the planning process to help deliver the housing that is needed.
“Strategic planning needs to make a comeback to impel local planning authorities to work together and local plans must be reviewed every three years.
"The overall picture has emerged in recent months of a market which is delivering steadily rising volumes of consented accommodation, yet only modest increases in actual starts and completions.
"However, with starts and completions still well under 150,000 units per annum, there is a long way to go before a balanced market emerges. This makes the post-election policy challenge both critical in importance and substantial in scale."
The Bidwells Election Special Planning Commentary also takes an in-depth look at other key planning issues such as the Green Belt, London's Housing targets and the Duty to Cooperate, the Environment and Localism.
Click here to see Bidwells Planning Commentary Spring 2015 – Election Special
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