Can Andy Burnham solve the UK's housing crisis?

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. Can Andy Burnham solve the UK's housing crisis? ByBen ChuPolicy and Analysis correspondent, Verify Published15 minutes agoMillions of people are facing unaffordable rents, long waits for social housing, or are priced out of the market when they are ready to buy. The average house price in England was £300,000 last year - almost eight times average earnings.

The Labour government has pledged to build 1. 5 million new homes in England over the course of this Parliament - but it is already falling behind on this target. Andy Burnham is credited by some people with overseeing a building boom in Manchester as mayor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, although critics say there remain serious housing problems in the city region.

The Details

Verify has looked at the scale of the housing challenge facing Burnham once he becomes PM, and examined whether there is anything we can learn from his record as mayor to see how he might tackle it. What has Burnham said about housing? Burnham has said , externalthe UK is in the grip of a "housing crisis" and he wants to deliver "the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period" - but has not provided details on exactly what this means.

Keir Starmer's government had already pledged £39bn, external to fund the construction of 300,000 new "social and affordable houses" over the course of 10 years during the 2025 Spending Review, and said this money would "reinvigorate" council housebuilding. That would equate to around 30,000 new homes a year, but the majority of those were expected to be social housing built by not-for-profit housing associations using government grants. Council house construction has collapsed across England since the 1980s and much of the stock of local authority homes has been sold off since then under the right-to-buy policy, external for tenants introduced by the Thatcher government of that era.

A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive Housing in your area Type in a full postcode to find out how many homes your area has been adding Compared with: The UK government’s target for 1. 5 million homes is for England only. It does not apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, where housing is a devolved matter.

What Experts Say

Sources In the 1950s, councils were building almost 200,000 new council homes a year. In 2025 that figure was just 1,970 - and only around half of all councils, external now either own or build homes directly. If Burnham intends for councils themselves to directly build all the new homes he has promised, they would be required to construct tens of thousands a year, when many have not built any for decades.

It would also probably require a considerable increase in council budgets, allowing them to rebuild their internal teams needed to plan, commission and manage large-scale housebuilding.

The story has become one of the most prominent items on the global agenda.