Seven months on from the UK general election, the dust has settled and the new Labour housing minister Matthew Pennycook, should be feeling fairly at home in his new departmental office.

Our potted history of the housing crisis identifies the main factors that led up to today’s situation.

But what’s next?

This month we’re asking Ellie to tackle the not-insignificant question: how can we solve the housing crisis. Easy, right?

As well as probing her for reflections on how we got here, we’re gleaning her thoughts on how the new government is measuring up against the grand promises of its election manifesto.

So Ellie, an easy one to start with: what is this crisis that we’re talking about?

Put simply, there aren’t enough homes to house our population appropriately. But it’s far from simple when you look at the detail.

Historically, we’ve not been building enough – the government’s annual target of 300,000 homes a year has not been reached since 1969. And those that are built, aren’t necessarily the right type, so we have a mismatch, too.

The resulting supply and demand issue has created a bloated housing market, a serious affordability issue and a troublesome homelessness problem.

Why is this proving to be so difficult for successive governments to fix?

Perhaps it’s the age-old problem that those who have can’t fully appreciate that scale of the problem or impact on those who haven’t. And so the difficult decisions that are required never get taken.

The planning system is inherently political, heavily influenced by what the electorate thinks. There’s a common misconception that we are “running out” of land, or that there’s sufficient brownfield land. In truth, we have only built on 1.4% of land in Britain (in England that figure is 8.7%) and have excellent protections in place for our most valuable and precious countryside.

Ambitious plans to build 1.5 million homes in five years are likely to get caught up in concerns over greenfield development, but we used to be much more ambitious with large scale infrastructure projects so it definitely feels like a perception problem.

Of all the factors that have contributed to the housing crisis, which do you think has been the most harmful?

It’s tricky to say, really. Within the time that I’ve been working in the sector, I think the housing moratorium, which many councils across the north west adopted around in the 2000s, was particularly counterproductive.

At the time there was a sense that too many houses were being built but, looking back, removing upper limits on house building during this time would have certainly helped to ease the backlog now.

In the end, many of these councils have been subjected to speculative development proposals in the years preceding it, so having more control over their own housing supply instead of shutting up shop would have been a better approach.

What are the key challenges facing the sector now?

For me the most important challenge is a lack of strategic direction. Partly this stems from uncertainty at central government. But there could be a clearer sense of strategic direction across local authorities regardless of what central government is doing. Certainly we see faster progress when we work with local planning authorities that have a clear sense of the importance of new homes, and the knock-on economic benefits it brings.

Can you give an example?

Well, everyone agrees that a brownfield first policy is the right approach. The challenge is that brownfield sites are difficult to buildout and only get delivered with the support of grant funding.

Developers who are committed to brownfield sites need the certainty that funding will remain available over five or 10 years and the support of pragmatic decision makers in light of viability issues.

On a practical level, this probably means we need to give planning officers the support they need to understand and get behind the bigger picture.

What needs to happen to fix things?

Simply put, we need to increase the number of new homes being built! But when you break it down, it’s about having the right type in the right locations.

Those most affected by the housing crisis are the younger generation. Where councils have got policy restrictions on one-bed apartments, recent societal changes, along with the introduction of the National Design Space Standards, should lead to these caps being reassessed.

If we’re going to solve this huge problem, we’ll need to come at it from all angles. So we should embrace new forms of accommodation, too, like ensuring genuine accessibility for all, and co-living schemes. Co-living offers alternative accommodation for young professionals that either need flexibility in tenancy, or might not be able to afford a lease on a whole flat.

We also need to encourage movement in the existing stock. It’s not just smaller apartments for young people that we need to build, it’s homes for the older generation to downsize into, to free up existing stock.

What do you make of what Labour has done so far, and what they’re promising to do?

The government seems to be making the right noises, and it’s really positive that Greater Manchester has been granted greater autonomy on funding for infrastructure.

What the region needs is ongoing certainty over how developments will be supported through government funding so that difficult brownfield sites can surmount costly burdens like Biodiversity Net Gain, and brownfield remediation. Otherwise, what we’re seeing is that many developers are putting their development programmes on hold while they wait for clarity on government funding.

What do you think?

Well, reader, there we go. Ellie’s thoughts in a nutshell. Clearly, it’s not a simple question with a simple answer and we’d love to hear your thoughts.

Is there “one thing” that would significantly shift the dial?

What would you do if you were housing minister?

Ellie on… How to Fix the Housing Crisis