Intelligence by national planning consultants Barton Willmore has started a debate about how Covid-19 might affect delivery of housing as the UK emerges from the pandemic. The intelligence acknowledges that none of us really know the consequences, so uses a simplistic approach to see “how things might play out”.

We thought it might be fun (or at least interesting in comparison) to run the same for Wales using the benchmark of 2008-9 and apply subsequent UK percentage “fall and recovery pattern” to 2018-19 (the last year for which completions data is available).

There you go. Feast your eyes. Pleasant viewing it isn’t.

Were the pattern to repeat recent UK history, completions in Wales could fall to 3600 units in 2024-25 before any recovery (of sorts). Here’s hoping simplistic data analysis, past history, regional variations, the market, Council and Welsh Government interventions prove me wrong.

There are many ifs, buts, maybes and cautions in the data sets used of course to claim to be precise. Barton Willmore states it very clearly “Whilst quite simplistic, this analysis does present us with food for thought around the sheer scale of impact this situation could result in, while also bringing into sharp relief, the importance of both the industry’s and the Government’s response for exit”.

A Planning White Paper is due in England following the March Budget. What will Welsh Government do?

UPDATE 29/04

Forecasting can be fun and is interesting. However, reflecting last night on regional variations in housing delivery I thought, how might Wales perform if it followed Welsh rather than UK performance post 2008? Welsh Government does after all have different housing powers and policy tools at it disposal and it tells us it is more public/RSL sector interventionist in its approach to provision. We can see in the Wales scenario the performance curve (green column) is flatter, with less of a fall. Should housing delivery performance in Wales repeat its post 2008 recovery pattern, then relatively Wales may fare better than the UK overall.

Welsh Government Central Estimates of housing need indicate an average of 7000 dwellings is required per year until 2028-29. The last time more than 7000 dwellings were completed in Wales was 2008-9. The forecast suggests completions might not reach the average estimate of need at any point this decade. The shortfall against the Central Estimate of need could grow to 21700 units by 2028-29 were UK performance repeated or nearly 14000 if the Welsh pattern replicates itself. To give some kind of context to a looming delivery crisis, RSLs and Local Authorities have completed some 1200-1300 dwellings/year since 2015-16. They barely touch the sides of need.

We can all play around with data to move the numbers up and down. This post is purposely food for thought. The burning question it leads me to is will Welsh Government through public sector intervention and RSL’s have the appetite to afford to build the kind of recovery that might be needed and; will the Welsh public let it.