According to a new report, the housing output that was proposed by the government is now unlikely to be met.
Forecasts suggest that the housing output for 2025 could be as low as 32,000 units, which falls very short of the government’s ambitious 50,000 target.
Reports now suggest that to reach that number of houses could take until 2030, meaning we will produce less housing over the next two to three years than we did in 2023 alone.
Paul Mitchell, one of the authors of the Mitchell McDermott Annual Construction Sector Report told Newstalk all hope is not lost just yet:
“It is possible to achieve it, but we’d have to ramp up,” he said.
“So we’re not going to do 50,000 houses in 2025 - we’d need to scale up.
“We’ve known the issue for a number of years. Certain things have been done, and they’ve helped, but dramatic change is required to reach those targets.”
The report also indicated that just 40% of the 200,000 housing unit applications which were supposedly “fast tracked” in 2019 have begun being built.
“To go from 200,000 down to 80,000 is an extremely high mortality rate, and it shows that we need to address the blockages which are stopping construction,” Mr. Mitchell went on to say.
This reportedly includes thing like planning, judicial review, infrastructure and funding for the projects.
