Empty Bedrooms Undermine New Building

The growing trend towards under-occupation is exacerbating Britain’s housing crisis, according to new research from the Intergenerational Foundation. Building on previous studies from IF which have examined the issue of under-occupation, this report uses census data to show that nearly 1 million extra households were classed as under-occupying between 2001 and 2011 in England. In effect, this means that almost a fifth of all the extra space that was added to England’s housing stock throughout this period has been wasted, as the additional capacity it created was cancelled-out by the increasingly inefficient way in which our existing housing stock is being used. Download the report from the Intergenerational Foundation website.