As public debate about the housing and planning system grows, a new report from the Centre for Policy Studies demolishes a series of longstanding and increasingly damaging myths about the British housing sector. It has received support from four former housing ministers - with Sajid Javid, Simon Clarke, Kit Malthouse and Brandon Lewis all giving the paper their backing.

The Case for Housebuilding by Alex Morton and Elizabeth Dunkley accepts that many of the criticisms of the housing sector are completely valid. But it takes aim at a series of myths that are helping to reduce support for much needed new homes. First, that Britain does not have a housing supply problem. Second, that increasing supply would do little to reduce the price of housing to affordable levels, because it is primarily driven by monetary factors. Third, that there is sufficient brownfield land that there is no need for greenfield development. And fourth, that building new houses is invariably unpopular.  

The report notes:

• In the 1960s, Britain built 3.6m homes, while in the 2000s and 2010s we built around 1.5m homes a decade, despite far higher population growth.
• The size of new homes has fallen. The homes the UK is building are now the smallest in Europe.
• Since the 1970s house prices have increased dramatically. In addition, prices have risen fastest where supply and demand are most imbalanced. In
  countries that built more, price rises have been far lower.
• Rents are also climbing as a share of income. Whereas private renters spent 10% of their income on housing from the 1960s to the 1980s, rising to 15% in London, the share of income spent on rent has risen to 30% in recent years, and almost 40% in London.
• Arguments that housebuilding is roughly keeping pace with new household formation are fundamentally flawed, as are claims that the enough houses can be delivered simply by building on brownfield land or building out existing planning permissions.
• Indeed, cities like London and Bristol could build just 24% of the homes they need over the next 15 years on currently existing brownfield sites. Most rural areas have almost no brownfield.