The IEA’s Head of Political Economy Kristian Niemietz has written in the daily telegraph examining the British housing market and exploring the factors which have led to the immense supply-side shortage.

Kristian wrote:

“Michael Gove on Wednesday published his Renters’ Reform Bill. This legislation has done little to assuage disquiet over the supply of rental properties, while entrenching concerns that landlords remain the Government’s whipping boy.

“All of this is unsurprising if we look at the market fundamentals. Britain has one of the lowest levels of housing supply in the developed world. If we wanted to catch up with the European average in terms of the number of housing units per 100,000 people, we would have to build three and half million new homes (and that would not make us good; it would just make us about average).

“What really makes Britain’s housing market different from its counterpart in most other countries is a planning system which empowers professional obstructionists and time-rich troublemakers.”

Read Kristian’s full piece here.