Alongside Starmer’s ‘Build Baby Build’ mantra, Britain’s housing crisis needs ‘Fix Baby Fix’

The message from the Government is clear: we face a housing crisis, and the solution is to ‘build baby build’. 

But building alone won’t cut it. Plans to build 1.5 million homes this parliament are laudable, but overlook the 2 million homes in England with a serious risk to residents’ health and safety, and the further 1.6 million homes that are cold, damaged, or lack modern facilities. 

To ensure good homes for all, we also need to fix what we’ve got. 

As is often the case, however, doing so is easier said than done. If you have a problem in your home such as damp or poor accessibility, many schemes exist to help, but many obstacles also stand in your way. First, the seriousness of the problem may be hidden. Even if you then grasp the scale of the problem, there is no clear source of advice on potential fixes. If you’re a renter, you need agreement from your landlord. When organising the fix, it is hard to know which tradesperson can be trusted. And to pay for it all, there is a complex landscape of financial options or government support available. 

As we might expect, many households feel unable to navigate all this – and many continue to live in dangerous, unsuitable homes. A new approach is needed to address this crisis and the complexity underlying it. Luckily, some councils are leading the way. 

Take Lincolnshire council. They have set up Good Home Lincs – a one-stop shop for guidance and support on all home improvement issues facing certain at-risk residents, including heating, security, or adaptations for disabilities. They provide information and advice, and independent home assessments. Other councils offer additional services. Somerset council, for example, offers loans for home improvements via a social enterprise lender, and provides a handyperson service for low-cost fixes.

This one-stop shop model is called a ‘Good Home Hub’, developed by the Centre for Ageing Better and recommended by Demos last year. These Hubs are designed to cut through the complexity for both residents and councils. They can build trust among the local community by offering an easy-to-understand service and linking into local networks across GPs, care homes, tradespeople, charities, and local businesses. In turn, they empower residents to make the improvement they need. Demos’s new analysis suggests that, if delivered across the UK, these Hubs would support 390,000 to 550,000 households each year to fix their homes. At the same time, the Hubs simplify the job for councils, who also struggle to navigate the many different services and funding pots on offer.

The elephant in the room, of course, is money. A national roll-out of Good Home Hubs is expected to cost £245 million, and you can already hear the response from the Treasury that money is tight. 

But worry not. Our new analysis shows that delivering Good Home Hubs would not only pay for itself, but could provide some extra cash on top!

How can that be? First, a lot of money (circa £200 million annually) is already spent on home improvement services, but this would no longer be needed if the Hubs were delivered. Second, many residents are happy to pay to improve their homes, and the Hubs would help them do so. By charging for home assessments and handyperson services for some residents, Good Home Hubs could raise around £61 million each year. And it doesn’t end there. The Hubs could raise even more by, for example, receiving interest from loans or selling the ‘carbon credits’ they can get by reducing household emissions.

So the reward for residents – and for the public purse – is clear. But there is also a dividend for the nation as a whole. In fact, a triple dividend! Demos has shown how fixing Britain’s homes would simultaneously benefit the economy (through new jobs and more productive households), the environment (through more energy efficient homes), and health (by preventing home-related illness and injury). Good Homes Hubs could be central to any one of the government’s missions on growth, net zero and NHS waiting times.

What’s needed now is action – and promising opportunities lay ahead, be that when the government sets new budgets in the upcoming Spending Review, or in the reorganisation of regional and local government as part of the government’s devolution plans. While ‘Build Baby Build’ will no doubt continue to be a mantra for Government during these changes, ‘Fix Baby Fix’ – and the Good Home Hub model to match – would be a sensible addition.