Rics hits at "short-term" focus on housing A focus on short-term fixes by successive governments over the past 50 years has exacerbated the failure of the UK housing market, according to a new report. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors housing commission, set up in February to find ways to address the housing crisis, on Monday called for an end to "short-term and partial policies." Michael Newey, president-elect of Rics, said successive governments had failed to produce a coherent, long-term strategy for housing, which has contributed to the "market failure." As part of its report, the Rics commission published 33 recommendations that it believes would help the housing market in the long term. This included doubling the target for releasing public land for residential development in England from 100,000 to 200,000 new homes by 2015. It said the government should then identify enough land for a further 250,000 homes during the next parliament. More controversial recommendations include new council tax bands for higher-value properties, where the money generated has to be used for funding new affordable housing. It also suggested exempting people over the age of 65 downsizing from a larger property from stamp duty land tax, as a way of encouraging older generations to move to a smaller home. While the report welcomed initiatives introduced by the coalition since 2010, such as Funding for Lending and the Help to Buy scheme, it said the outcomes of UK housing options remained "inadequate." Members of the housing commission, which included Mark Clare, the group chief executive of housebuilder Barratt, were unanimous in agreeing the need for more houses for all types of tenure. The report said one of the problems of the current government initiatives was the focus on creating demand for new homes almost exclusively for those able to buy. "There is a new "Help to Buy" policy but no new "Help to Rent,"" said Mr Newey. We believe that this emphasis is strategically unwise. Policy is addressing an old idea rather than the new market. It suggested that one way of boosting supply for renting was to allow self-invested personal pension schemes to invest in new-build property, as long as it was let on the private rental market and managed professionally. Jack Dromey, Labour's shadow housing minister, said Britain was in the midst of the biggest housing crisis in a generation. Millions are locked out of home ownership, languishing on housing waiting lists or living in a private rented sector where too many face ever-rising rents, a lack of security and poor standards. Mr Dromey said the prime minister had no answer to the problem: "Despite relaunching his "Get Britain Building" programme four times and making hundreds of announcements, housebuilding is at its lowest levels since the 1920s." However, housing minister Mark Prisk said the coalition was "fixing all areas of the dysfunctional housing market we inherited in 2010." Other recommendations by Rics include requiring developers to start building work within three years of planning consent. This is a concept similar to a new policy mooted by Labour last week that would see housebuilders face financial penalties housebuilders face financial penalties for sitting on undeveloped land by giving councils the power to charge developers a fee for hoarding land once planning permission has been given.