Britain is in the grip of a housing crisis and has been for more than a decade with solving it a challenge that no government from neither side of the political spectrum has been able to truly solve.

The housing market is somewhat of a political hot potato as a large core of the UK voting population own at least one property and any policy which could decrease the value of their housing investments is unlikely to go down well even if it is probably better for society.

This unenviable conundrum was the subject of a recent documentary from the BBC and the Open University which assessed the issues with the supply and demand for housing and why all the ‘solutions’ from the government were unsuccessful.

Starting from the Thatcher era of the late seventies and covering the chaos up to Rishi Sunak’s current term, the documentary is a clinical assessment of where it all went wrong for the housing market.

Not only does it evaluate the (lack of) success for the government’s attempts at solving the housing problem (such as Help to Buy and Right to Buy) but also considers the role played by the banks lending too frivolously pre-2008 and the lesser considered housebuilders only seeking to maximise profits.

Without going on, it is absolutely brilliant. For me, it is complex enough to hold my interest without being too complicated to make me want to switch it off and leaves certain questions unanswered to allow for your own interpretation.

Another success of this programme is the experts that were featured: politicians, economists, housing campaigners, housebuilders, bankers and my personal favourite consumer expert Martin Lewis. Each gave a different perspective on the situation that gave the viewer a rounded perspective to draw their own conclusions from.

The only thing it didn’t answer was what we should do instead, it acknowledged that if we build more houses it will reduce prices (something that will be highly unpopular) and allowing more people to buy with artificially lowered prices just makes it even more expensive overall – anyone have any better ideas?

In conclusion, I highly, highly recommend watching this documentary as although it raises more questions than answers it gives I haven’t seen anything else which effectively explains the nuances of our rather broken housing market.

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