The government says it wants a million homes built in England by 2020, as the scale of the housing crisis is revealed in a BBC Inside Out investigation.
The National Housing Federation estimated 974,000 homes were needed between 2011 and 2014. However this number is in stark contrast to the actual number built in this period, which is estimated to be only 457,490.
Gill Payne, director of policy and external affairs, said: "In some areas, there is a drastic shortage causing prices to soar, putting homes out of the reach of many people.
"Skyrocketing rents and ballooning house prices are eating up more and more of people's wages and forcing people out of their local communities or into smaller, lower quality housing."
"We haven't built enough homes in this country for decades, and if the gap between the number of households forming and the number of new homes being built continues to grow, we are in danger of not being able to house our children." the failure to build more homes
Numerous factors have been blamed, ranging from planning procedures being too slow to developers sitting on large tracts of empty land instead of building on it.
In 2012, the government, in an attempt to address the housing shortage, introduced changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, aimed at making the planning process simpler and quicker.
Since these changes, some 240,000 planning applications have been given detailed permission in 2014 compared with 158,000 in 2011. This has gone some way to addressing the housing shortage. However, it is evident that further funding and initiatives need to be given the green light if the Government is to meet its ambitious target.
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