Shortfall of 2 million homes after seminal report of 2004 “ignored”

England has a housing shortfall equivalent to the entire housing stock of Ireland, according to a new HBF report marking 20 years since Dame Kate Barker’s landmark review of the country’s housing supply.

The report, Beyond Barker, reveals that England would have 2 million more homes today if the Barker Review’s most ambitious scenario for increasing housing supply had been achieved. This deficit also represents the number of homes in the urban areas of Manchester and Birmingham combined.

HBF said achieving this number would have required 297,000 homes a year to be delivered on average since 2003. But according to its report, the average has been closer to 190,000.

Beyond Barker analyses the progress made in implementing the recommendations of the Barker Review of Housing Supply, published in March 2004. It also demonstrates how the findings of the 20-year old review “still accurately describe” today’s housing market and estimates the housing shortfall that has grown in the subsequent years.

HBF said the Barker Review, commissioned by the Treasury to address the long-term undersupply issue and declared “the most detailed analysis of the housing market in 50 years”, had yielded little change from government. HBF’s analysis …