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Press Releases for March 2006
March 26, 2006
Government 'hiding' immigration impact on housing growth
March 15, 2006
New figures show true extent of immigration impact on housing demand. March 14, 2006
Full Text of Releases : March 2006
March 26, 2006
Government 'hiding' immigration impact on housing growth
The Government has been accused of deliberately hiding the impact of immigration on the country’s future housing needs.
The recent Household Projection report (March 14) did not even mention immigration as being a factor in the requirement to build the 4.8m new houses which it said were needed in Britain between 2003 and 2026.
But, says a detailed analysis of the figures out today, immigration is in fact the largest single primary factor requiring 65,000 houses to be built each year – equivalent to a city the size of Peterborough every 12 months. That amounts to 1.5 million over the period 2003 – 2026, or very nearly a third of the total new households.
Think-tank Migrationwatch has found that if immigration and emigration were roughly in balance it would eliminate the need for the government’s massive proposed increase in the housing programme and would greatly alleviate the need for ‘concreting over the South East’ and the huge pressure on the environment that will result. (Read report).
‘As usual the issue of immigration was swept under the carpet and the ‘spin’ put on the story was that it was the growth of one person households that was the principal cause of the housing requirement, giving the impression that this is caused simply by social trends’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman.
‘In fact our analysis shows that this is thoroughly misleading. In order of size immigration is the single largest primary contributor - accounting for 32% of the increase; more adults accounted for 28% of the rise and in third place was more single households (arising from changing social trends) accounting for 21% Migration was simply not mentioned in the document from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister as a reason for the growth in households.’
Without it there would be no requirement for the recent massive increase in the government’s house building target and very little need to build on green field sites at all.
Sir Andrew said the massive house building programme would affect every community in the country and it was therefore important to understand why (and whether) it was necessary.
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March 15, 2006
New figures show true extent of immigration impact on housing demand. March 14, 2006
Attempts to play down the impact of immigration on UK housing have badly backfired following the publication today of household projection figures from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
The figures show that immigrants will need 1.5 million homes in the period from 2003 to 2026 – that’s 65,000 each year – or nearly a third of all new households.
And even this is based on out dated figures.
A much quoted study last year by the Town and Country Planning Association said that the impact of immigration would be more modest - at 40,000 p.a. This is now shown to have been a serious underestimate.
‘The Government, and their supporters, have previously tried hard to play down the impact of immigration on housing because they know the major effect it is going to have on the quality of life in the UK, particularly in the South East where most migrants come to live,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch.
‘These figures spell out the real situation and the problems that are going to be caused as the pressures increase on our roads, railways, public services, and the environment. It is ironic that the figures come on the very day that there is growing concern at the deteriorating water supply situation in the South East,’ he said.
In a paper on the figures (Read report) Migrationwatch says that even these very large figures do not give the full impact of immigration.
The figures used in today’s projections are based on the assumption of 130,000 international migrants each year. But this figure has since been revised to145,000 a year for the UK by the Government Actuary although this will not be used until a later revision.
Meanwhile the actual level of immigration for the UK in 2004 reached 223,000.
‘In their response to the Barker Report, the government have recently increased their house building target from 150,000 houses a year to 200,000 houses a year. The new figures demonstrate, if it were not for immigration, that increase would be completely unnecessary. This is a clear consequence of their policy of promoting large scale immigration which is causing huge concern throughout the country, ‘said Sir Andrew.
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