Lockdown Living - in which the Resolution Foundation discover (and then ignore) London's housing crisis

 The Resolution Foundation has published some work looking at what they call "Lockdown Living", essentially a brief review of housing conditions in the UK:

We show that living conditions in lockdown have been determined by long-term housing trends such as tenure change, the failure to build sufficient social-housing stock and weak regulation of the private-rented sector. As we face the prospect of local lockdowns or even a second wave going into the winter months, both short- and long-term action to address the inequalities uncovered here is needed more than ever before.

What the Resolution Foundation find shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone with more than the passing appreciation of housing issues in the UK. We're told that poorer people live in less good, more overcrowded conditions and that older people tend to have more living space than younger people. Unsurprisingly, given the age and social profile of BAME communities - younger, poorer - these groups are more likely to be in poor homes (Resolution Foundation use damp as their test here) and more likely to be overcrowded.

The report makes few recommendations (suggesting, for example, that opening playgrounds, libraries and leisure centre especially in more deprived areas would ease pressures from lockdown) but points to several problems within our system such as changing tenures and how this impacts on health and well-being. The authors, however, remain stuck with the belief that the resolution to housing issues such as those they describe lie in more regulation and more state-controlled housing provision. At no point to they try to understand how it is that the well-being of owner occupiers is so much better than that of renters (both social and private sector).

It is notable too that no attmept is made by the authors to understand geographical factors in their findings. We read that BAME people are more likely to live in overcrowded conditions, less likely to have a garden, and more likely to live in a damp home. Clearly a concern but the Resolution Foundation should also have noted that 55% of the UK's BAME population lives in London which also has much higher levels of private renting, high rise living and poor quality social housing.

Similarly, having noted how over 55s have much more living space, the authors don't then also recognise that this is what might be called an "empty nest" effect brought about by young people leaving home for work or study rather than a direct consequence of intergenerational housing inequality. There's also a geographical issue here since London has a much younger age profile than the rest of the UK and further that the Resolution Foundation's use of unadjusted income skews the findings since average London incomes are much higher than much of the rest of the UK.

It's good that this work is done although the Resolution Foundation could be a lot less 'glass half empty' in its presentation. The problem, however, is simply not a function of PRS regulation or the lack of funding for social housing for all that some changes here would be desirable. The problem is London. Every single measure that the report uses reflects the crisis within London's housing - overcrowding reflects a (social and private) rental market dominated by flats, damp homes the overwhelming of environmental health enforcement by the sheer numbers of private rented properties, and the loss of wellbeing by the fact that 'thirtysomethings' in London stay renting because they can't afford to buy.

It's almost certainly the case that the young and less well-off have, in terms of day-to-day living, suffered worse under lockdown - the "lockdown is lovely" crowd were mostly well-heeled retirees outside London with nice homes and gardens in smart market towns not stressed immigrant families in a London high-rise or young professionals trying to work from home on a wobbly IKEA desk in the corner of a bedroom. But stripped of the emotive messaging, what we see from the report is further evidence that London does not begin to meet the housing needs of many of its residents and that the only way to meet these needs is to build more family housing. Enough that, over time, we can get back to the conditions of those 'thirtysomethings' parents and have family homes affordable to people on average pay.

Spending lots of money on new social housing (which is unlikely to be family housing in London) or badgering government into new rent regulations might seem like a good idea but, in reality, it's using an inadequate sticking plaster to cover over the damage done by the lack of housing land supply in the South East and London. Without the wholesale reform of our strategic planning system to free up five- or ten-times more land for housing, the problems found by the Resolution Foundation will persist.

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