The Redfern Review

A blog-lette...

...slightly late on this, as it is too depressing for words – but the report commission by the Labour party into housing – the Redfern Review – has recently said that the causes of high house prices have nothing to do with a lack of house building, but everything to do with an explosion in credit, and the private sector building more houses will do nothing in the short term to solve the affordability crisis. It extensively looked at the evidence, thoroughly and methodically crunched the numbers and pretty much proved that this was the case, beyond reasonable doubt.

I have said this until I have become blue in the face, like an ignored smurf.

For what it's worth, here it is one more time, for posterity: building more houses in the short term will do nothing to solve the affordability crisis.

This conclusion has been completed ignored by everyone, including the Labour party, who almost immediately after the review was published authorized a spokesman to say “this report shows it is clear we need to build more houses to make houses affordable again” – which is exactly the opposite of what the report they commissioned says.

I give up.