ABSTRACT
Although the level of investment is the fundamental determinant of the volume of housebuilding, housing supply is also substantially influenced by the cyclical nature of housebuilding and by government policy. Within this context, this chapter:
• considers the relationship between housebuilding and housing needs; • examines the housebuilding cycle in both the social and the private sectors; • discusses the government’s response to the cycle during the 1980s and 1990s; • analyses the relationship between new housing need, regional imbalances in need, and
housing need in the South East; • explores the arguments for and against greenfield versus brownfield housing
development; and • concludes by reviewing housebuilding under Labour, post-1997.
