Majority of public back `borrow-to-build'
A majority of the public say they support the next Government borrowing money to fund the building of more affordable housing for people to buy or rent in England, according to a new poll by Ipsos for the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).
The poll, undertaken before Easter, the 2 April Leaders debate and several announcements by the main parties on housing policies, found 54% of adults in England saying they either strongly or tend to support Government borrowing for this purpose. A fifth, 21%, are opposed with a quarter, 24%, saying they neither support nor oppose.
Renters are most supportive, as are people in London – respectively 60% and 66% back Government borrowing for affordable housing. Before being asked whether they supported or opposed the Government borrowing money to build more affordable housing, a separate group of respondents were told that: ‘It is estimated by Cambridge University that England needs to build around 240,000 new homes a year to keep pace with demand. This number of homes has not been built in any single year since the 1970s. During this time, private house builders have never built more than 175,000 homes a year.’ This group was relatively less supportive than those who were not given this information: by 47% to 54%. Opposition was higher too; 25% against 20%.
Ben Marshall, Research Director at Ipsos said:
“Other Ipsos polls have shown the public recognise the housing crisis and want government action, especially on affordability and supply. This survey shows an instinctive backing for this, but we should appreciate the possibility that support could be conditional on the extent and implications of any borrowing. There are other interesting findings in this research. Intuitively, a briefing on the extent of the housing crisis might be expected to enhance support for Government borrowing to build. But the opposite is the case. Perhaps while making the public aware of under-supply can help attract people to the Homes for Britain cause, on this evidence there is an associated risk of some statistics creating a sense of fatalism among some sections of the public.”
Technical details Ipsos interviewed 1,627 adults aged 16+ across England, face-to-face, in-home between 13 March and 1 April 2015. Data is weighted to the known population profile across England.
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