Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney warned that the housing market posed the biggest risk to Britain's economic recovery as a shortage of new homes drives up prices. "The issues around the housing market in the UK...is there are not sufficient houses built in the UK," he said. "(There are) half as many people in Canada as in the UK, (but) twice as many houses are built in Canada every year than in UK."

English councils built more than 1000 new homes between January and March, a five fold increase on the previous quarter. The figure of 1009 is the first time councils have built more than 1000 homes since they were allowed to keep rent receipts for development in April 2012.

Redeveloping existing NHS buildings to include floors of apartments above the service buildings could provide 77, 000 news homes in London, WSP has said. This would represent almost 20% of the 400,000 homes needed in London in the next decade. WSP’s estimation is based on its analysis of 79 individual existing NHS buildings in London, allowing for 100m² per apartment and using a mixed height overbuild development strategy, with a combination of six, 12, and 18 storeys.

Existing towns and cities should be expanded and the cap on some councils’ borrowing lifted to allow more homes to be built Sir Michael Lyons, who is overhauling Labour’s housing policy, has told the Guardian. Sir Michael also said that protracted delays in the release of land were the single biggest cause of Britain’s housing crisis. His inquiry’s first conclusions are due out in September.

The HBF’s latest Housing Pipeline report says that the moving annual total of 177,731 new homes with planning permissions in the 12 months to Q1 is the highest level granted in 12 months since 2008.