Miller Homes Raises Awareness of Housing Shortage with Charity Support
Released on: October 4, 2011, 11:58 am
Author:
Helen Seed
Industry:
Real Estate
A Director of one of Britain’s biggest housebuilders has
pledged to sleep rough for a night in November in a bid to draw
attention to Britain’s housing shortage - a problem which experts
predict could leave over 20,000 by 2015.
Sue Warwick, National Head of Sales and Marketing for Miller Homes, made the
decision to experience a night sleeping on the streets following a series of reports
which showed that Britain was on the brink of the worst housing shortage since World
War II, thanks to a combination of issues which have seen housing output slump to
just 130,000 new homes a year against
a predicted requirement of 280,000.
One of the more recent reports on the subject from the Centre for Economics and
Business Research (CEBR) stated that Britain needs 750,000 new homes by 2025 in
order to house the growing population – but a range of factors including poor
mortgage supply, lack of planning policy and faltering consumer confidence have
stalled building programmes with all housebuilders – a problem which will begin to
kick-in in earnest within the next three years.
According to Miller Homes, the housing shortage is just the tip of the iceberg – and
the vast majority of Britons will feel the effects of the problem before the start
of the next decade. The warnings follow a recent statement from the Centre for
Economics and Business Research (CEBR) which predicted that the housing shortage
will having a dramatic impact on house prices, which are likely to reach an all-time
high by 2015.
Sue commented: “We are in a position where we have more households than houses. This
is a dreadful situation, and one that could have been avoided as we now stare down
the barrel at the worst housing shortage this country has seen since World War II.”
Miller Homes’ involvement in the sleep out fundraiser also comes within weeks of
Planning Minister; Greg Clarke’s defence of the Coalition’s planning policies, which
propose simplification of English planning law. 60,000 new homes are required per
quarter to meet the current shortfall in demand and Miller Homes remains a fierce
advocate of ensuring new buyers can get onto the property ladder.
Sue continued: “We strongly believe that everybody deserves to own a place they can
call home and the government needs to ensure that future generations are able to
afford what is wrongly now seen as a privilege rather than a right.
“We regularly express our concerns that house prices are prohibiting an increasing
number of people from home ownership, but rarely do we consider the property supply
itself. We must get to grips with the demand for housing before it is too late.”
Sue Warwick, national sales and marketing director for Miller Homes will be sleeping
out in London’s exchange square in the heart of the city on 10 November as part of
an event hosted by Centrepoint – the national charity geared towards giving young
homeless people a future.
Miller Homes is now urging as many people as possible to support Sue’s fundraiser by
making a donation on her JustGiving page. For more information on Sue Warwick’s
charity sleep out visit www.millerhomes.co.uk or to sponsor Sue, visit www.justgiving.com/Sue-Warwick.
ENDS
For further information on Miller Homes’ developments nationwide including new homes Leeds, new homes Glasgow and new homes West Midlands as well as its range of purchase incentives, visit www.millerhomes.co.uk.
Contact Details: Helen Seed
National Marketing Manager
Miller Homes Ltd
0870 336 4866
helen.seed@miller.co.uk
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