Press release: Is there a solution to the housing crisis?

4 October 2024

Is there a solution to the housing crisis? Free lecture from Gresham College to explore alternative answers 

Martin Daunton, Gresham College's Visiting Professor of Economic History, to give talk on Tuesday, 22 October, at 6pm, in central London and live online. 

Increased housing numbers, building on grey belt, ending no-fault evictions are all part of the new government's plans to solve the housing crisis, but is there another way?  

Next month, Gresham College is inviting people to a free lecture looking at how, as a nation, we have come to this point, and to look for alternative solutions. 

Martin Daunton will go back to Victorian times to seek to explain the shift to owner-occupation and council housing. After the Second World War, Britain had the biggest proportion of state-owned housing of any European country other than Hungary.  

"Housing has become overly financialised and people are using housing not simply as somewhere to live, but as an asset which goes up and up in value," he said.   

"Before the First World War, house values dropped by 40%, they didn't rise precipitously between the 1930s and 60s. It's after that it starts to change."  

The lecture will look at how the average buying age has increased 10 years since the 1960s, how social housing has declined since the 1970s, and how we are now a nation of renters, often in substandard accommodation.  

Part of the reason, Professor Daunton will argue, is down to protecting the Green Belt which led to increases in land values, and the abolition of land value tax.  

"There has been a changing attitude towards housing, including the way in which the mortgage market operates as a result," he said.  

"Now, there is not enough stress about the social market, as they were after the First and Second world wars.  

"The Right To Buy policy of the past 30 years was incorrect, we need a social democratic vision of housing as found in cities like Vienna." 

The lecture takes place from 6pm on Tuesday, 22 October, at Barnard's Inn Hall in Holborn.  

Entry is free (advanced booking essential) and, like all Gresham lectures will be streamed live on the Gresham website and YouTube channel, free of charge.  

Gresham College is London’s oldest higher education institution. Founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, it has been delivering free public lectures for over 427 years from a lineage of leading professors and experts in their field who have included Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, Iannis Xenakis and Sir Roger Penrose.  

In-person places can be booked online via Gresham College’s website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/britain-housing-crisis 

ENDS 

Notes to Editors 

Pictures available on request   

For more information about this story or to arrange an interview with Professor Daunton please contact: Phil Creighton press@gresham.ac.uk 

About Gresham College 
Gresham College has been providing free, educational lectures - at the university level - since 1597 when Sir Thomas Gresham founded the college to bring Renaissance Learning to Londoners. Our history includes some of the luminaries of the scientific revolution including Robert Hooke and Sir Christopher Wren and connects us to the founding of the Royal Society. 

Today we carry on Sir Thomas's vision. The College aims to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to champion academic rigour, professional expertise and freedom of expression. www.gresham.ac.uk 

Gresham College is a registered charity number 1039962 and relies on donations to help us encourage people's love of learning for many years to come. For more details or to make a gift, visit our website. 

About the Cities: Collective Action Versus Private Markets lecture series at Gresham College 
British cities are facing serious problems of housing shortages and high prices, of inadequate investment in basic infrastructure of water and sewage, and of financial strain on local government. 

This lecture series looks back to the Victorian era when Britain became the world’s first urban nation.  

It resolved a serious crisis of public health and low investment in the urban infrastructure – a process epitomised by Joseph Chamberlain’s mayoralty of Birmingham or Herbert Morrison’s leadership of London County Council.  

There was a debate over the boundary between private or collective provision, which moved towards collective action.  

Since the 1980s, there has been a move back to private action and the balance has changed in three areas: the provision of housing, investment in basic utilities and the financial capacity of local government.  

What solutions can be found for our current problems, and what lessons can be learned from cities in other countries?