Architects call for Ministry of Housing with cabinet-level leader

Ahead of the general election on 4 July, announced last Wednesday by prime minister Rishi Sunak, industry leaders are urging politicians to take more drastic measures to address the UK’s ‘failing’ housing system.

Paul Karakusevic, principal at Karakusevic Carson Architects, told the AJ he thought a ‘focused Public Housing Ministry’ was ‘the only method of getting social and genuinely affordable housing to the foreground of government thinking [and] into its spending plans’.

The architect, who first aired the idea during a panel talk on public housing at the Barbican in January, insists the move must be public sector-led, and the private sector ‘should not be part of the solution’.

Karakusevic, who has 20 years’ experience in social housing, has called for a 25-year housebuilding support and funding plan for councils and leading housing associations, who, he says, ‘can deliver double the genuinely affordable housing of a developer’ with the right model of grant funding, as they are not ‘top slicing’ profit from the process.

The architect added: ‘Social, council and genuinely affordable housing needs to be seen as a key national infrastructure and the existing National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) needs to focus on this [...] If the current NIC cannot do this then the new government needs to set up a dedicated Public Housing Commission to ensure genuinely affordable housing is taken seriously.’

Source:Karakusevic Carson Architects

Paul Karakusevic called for a Public Housing Ministry at the Barbican in January 2024

Kyle Buchanan, director at Archio, told the AJ the UK was ‘failing on housing’ at an ‘enormous human cost’.

The architect is similarly calling for a Ministry of Housing to be established, with ‘meaningful leadership, that seeks to build cross party consensus’ and ‘engages with industry’ to create long-term, strategic thinking and a clear plan for housing investment alongside net zero delivery.

A housing ministry would end the capricious nature of our five-year political cycles

Buchanan says a housing ministry which sat alongside other key departments and treated housing as critical infrastructure, akin to the NHS, transport and the economy, would help end the ‘capricious nature of our five-year political cycles [in order to] make meaningful change towards housing the population in decent, secure, affordable homes’.

He added: ‘Let's give this ministry real teeth, so that housing is not just the remit of a mid-ranking minister, who is always eyeing the next job, but falls to a secretary of state with a cabinet portfolio.’

Buchanan points out that more than a million UK households are currently on local authority housing waiting lists across the UK, while 14.6 per cent of UK homes are classed by the Decent Homes Standard as being in an unreasonable state of disrepair, due to the ‘fallout of our chaotic housing sector’.

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And Alex Ely, founder and director at Mæ Architects, insisted a ‘dedicated cabinet position, a secretary of state’ for housing could ‘make the difference we need’.

‘The subject is not being given the priority that our politicians say it is,’ Ely told the AJ, explaining: ‘We need someone with the vision and drive to make a real change.’

Ely said only ‘bold decision making’ and a consideration of housing ‘as part of our national infrastructure’ would help to tackle the housing crisis, at the same time as delivering much-needed housing within the UK’s carbon budget and prioritising retrofit and regenerative materials.

Meanwhile, Alex Luria, an associate at Jestico + Whiles who specialises in residential design and regeneration, called for any new government to appoint 'a new Council Housing Tsar.'

He also says a new government should 'supercharge' the ability of local authorities, who 'are not always able to operate on the same playing field as developers,' to compete for and deliver housing - and to consider 'special exemptions' for councils, in order to level the playing field.

Luria said the 'Tsar' role should go to someone 'with extensive experience of housing delivery, whether in the public or private sector, who will lead a generation of local authority development arms.'

He added: 'Under their remit, and using the Public Practice model, we could encourage the placement of a cohort of knowledgeable, seasoned, apolitical development managers across the country – able to drive forward hugely complex projects across our estates, towns, and cities.'