好色先生TV

Housing needs to be recognised as infrastructure in order to solve the housing crisis, according to top industry figures.

Richard Threlfall, partner and head of infrastructure building and construction at KPMG, said its inclusion was important to not only solve the crisis but to better plan infrastructure.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a long running issue and I certainly don鈥檛 see a solution to the current housing crisis that doesn鈥檛 involving thinking of housing as part of the broader infrastructure conversation.鈥�

Threlfall, who also chairs the Infrastructure Forum, an independent think tank, added he was completely behind housing being included within the National Infrastructure Commission鈥檚 (NIC) remit.

鈥淲e argued really strongly for housing to be included in the National Infrastructure Commission鈥檚 remit. In fact I had dinner with [former NIC chair] Andrew Adonis and he agreed wholeheartedly but it was a point he couldn鈥檛 get past Treasury.

鈥淎ll it currently allows is for the NIC to take into account the impact of housing on infrastructure needs but it is not able to include housing as an infrastructure need.鈥�

He said the fact 鈥渢he housing gap is generally regarded as the number one infrastructure need in the country鈥� was evidence it should be considered with other infrastructure decisions.

鈥淧utting it as a separate category really means that there is no one group really pushing the housing agenda. We always get a lot of government announcements on housing, just like we did at the last budget, but there is no single project responsible for it.

鈥淭he government continues to look at it as a devolved issue but that means there is no overall plan.鈥�

Threlfall added the only other solution was to give local authorities the ability to borrow and build significant volumes of homes.

He said: 鈥淯nless we do one of the two things I outlined the chance of achieving the target of 300,000 new houses a year is that it is absolutely not going to happen.鈥�

Lord Stunell agreed it was inexplicable housing was not currently under the jurisdiction of the NIC.

鈥淚t is integral that the NIC is expanded to include housing,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f we get an effective chair for the commission, include housing within its overall infrastructure scheme and stick to an Industrial Strategy that has construction at the forefront we could come out in a better position than where we started.鈥�