Thursday, September 22, 2005

Housing shortfall

BRITAIN is facing a housing crisis with a potential shortfall of 1.4 million homes, according to experts.

A comprehensive analysis projects an increase of 3.5 million households by 2021, or 175,000 extra households per year, The Times has learnt.

Housing experts claim that house-building needs to increase by 33 per cent from the current 154,000 a year to 220,000 a year to meet the rising demand, or the country faces spiralling homelessness and overcrowding. If building levels remain as they are there will be a shortfall of 1.4 million homes in 15 years. About 160,000 houses were built in 1950, rising to 291,000 in 1970. But this fell gradually to 135,000 in 2000, increasing only last year to more than 150,000.

The predicted explosion in households is due mainly to more people remaining single, rising divorce rates and older people living on their own rather than in nursing homes. However, nearly a quarter of the new households are due to increases in immigration.

Well that is a lie. Only 25% due to immigration? Don't make me laugh. Just a couple of months ago I taled about the 270,000 failed asylum seekers and 570,000 illegal immigrants (not counting dependants) still living in this country which amounts to 840,000. If we count the legal immigrants like they are doing here then immigration will account for 880,000 of the new homes. If we sent them back and stopped anymore from coming in we would only need an extra 520,000 homes which would save a lot of our countryside which is constantly being concreted over.

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