It will take £4bn to fix the House of Parliament and Palace of Westminster – and arguably divine intervention to fix the government inside. The same amount of money could build 40,000 new homes – and house one in three homeless people.
Of course, few would argue that this landmark should be preserved for future generations – whatever one’s opinion of those who walk its halls. However, it’s interesting to think about what else that money could build.
Research has revealed that matching the cost of planned Palace of Westminster repairs could dramatically reduce the UK housing deficit. In fact, it could build enough homes to shelter over 70% of London’s homeless population.
Data examined by Pure Commercial Finance revealed that for £4bn over 40,000 new properties could be built, housing almost 121,000 people.
Ben Lloyd, Managing Director and Co-founder of Pure Commercial Finance, said: “As development finance specialists, we deal with professional developers every day and are well-aware of the demand for affordable housing across the UK and the influence Brexit is having on borrowing.
“Although we would never suggest cancelling the refurbishment of such a prized national monument, we were shocked to see how matching the refurbishment budget could help towards solving the deficit.”
Government figures reveal 430,000 affordable homes have been built since 2010, but housing charity Shelter estimates a deficit of 3.2m homes and states there are around 320,000 homeless people in the UK – 170,000 in London alone.
Government figures show that the total number of affordable homes being bestowed on England shot up 22% in 2018-19; however, just 6,434 social rent homes were delivered last year, and 21,500 were lost through sales, conversions and demolitions.
More than 9 in 10 private renters who need a social home to rent are left languishing on waiting lists, according to figures from homeless charity Shelter.
But, what if that £4bn Houses of Parliament refurbishment budget was redistributed? Using internal data, Pure Commercial Finance calculated it costs just over £99,843.75 to build a 3-bedroom home in the UK.
That would mean 40,062 new homes could be built and 120,186 homed, based on three people to a house, with a budget the same as the Houses of Parliament repairs. That would house over a third of the UK’s rough sleepers (37.5%), or 71% of the capital’s homeless.
Polly Neate, CEO of Shelter, said: “It’s unforgivable that 320,000 people in Britain have been swept up by the housing crisis and now have no place to call home. These new figures show that homelessness is having a devastating impact on the lives of people right across the country.”
