Of all Britain’s national obsessions, housing must surely top the list. Policymakers face a barrage of the same questions: are we building enough houses? And are they cheap enough for most people to afford? If you take a look at the bigger picture, you can see why we ask.
Today Britain’s housing mix remains largely dominated by owneroccupied dwellings (as it has done for some time) with the starkest changes occurring in the types of rented accommodation. As the first chart illustrates, private renters come in as Britain’s second largest category of tenant, taking the spot council housing once had in the early 1990s.