‘Out of reach’: stalled newbuilds leave Labour’s social housing targets in tatters

3 days ago7 min read

The statistics are stark, a cold numerical indictment of a system failing its most vulnerable: families on Bath and North East Somerset council’s social housing list confront a 200-year wait for a four-bedroom property, a timespan so vast it feels less like a policy failure and more like a generational curse. The latest available figures show England is building just a little over 10,000 social homes a year, a trickle against a tidal wave of need, leaving the human faces behind these numbers—the single parents, the low-income workers, the children growing up in temporary accommodation—trapped in a purgatory of postponed stability.Tackling this profound crisis was a cornerstone of Labour’s election promise to build 1. 5 million homes over five years, a pledge that spoke directly to the lived experience of insecurity and the erosion of the social contract.In July, the government announced plans to spend £39bn building 300,000 affordable homes over a decade, with 60% of them earmarked for social rent, a headline-grabbing figure that, upon closer inspection, reveals the immense chasm between political ambition and on-the-ground reality. The stalled newbuilds across the country are not merely construction delays; they are symptoms of a deeper malaise, a complex web of planning bureaucracy, chronic underinvestment in local authority capacity, and the volatile economics of building materials and labour that disproportionately impact the affordable sector.This isn't just a housing crisis; it's a crisis of political will and prioritisation, where the tangible, immediate needs of families are consistently sacrificed on the altar of long-term, often nebulous, fiscal targets. The personal impact is devastating, echoing the stories I've heard from advocates and tenants' unions: the family of five living in a one-bedroom flat, the detrimental effect on children's education and health from constant moves, the psychological toll of never having a place to truly call home.Historically, we've seen this before—the great council house building programmes of the post-war era, driven by a collective societal belief in providing foundational security, have been systematically dismantled by decades of policy favoring private ownership and market solutions. The current government’s targets now risk being left in tatters, not necessarily through a lack of intent, but through a failure to address the structural impediments that have been decades in the making.Expert commentary from housing charities and economic think tanks consistently points to the need for more direct grant funding for social housing, reforms to the Right to Buy scheme that depletes existing stock, and empowering local councils to lead the charge, yet these recommendations often get lost in Whitehall. The consequences of inaction are a further entrenchment of inequality, where the security of a decent home becomes the privilege of the wealthy, fundamentally altering the social fabric of communities.From a feminist and social policy perspective, this failure hits women and children hardest, as they are disproportionately represented in social housing waiting lists and are more vulnerable to the impacts of poor and unstable housing. The narrative isn't just about bricks and mortar; it's about dignity, opportunity, and the very right to a stable foundation from which to build a life. Without a radical, human-centric overhaul of the approach, these targets will remain, cruelly, out of reach for the hundreds of thousands for whom they were designed to help.

#featured

#UK housing crisis

#social housing

#Labour government

#affordable homes

#construction targets

#Bath council