Britain’s dysfunctional housing market but don’t mention LVT

There is something profoundly wrong with our housing system: demand and prices continue to rise yet supply does not, largely due to the development process. In this article, published today for the London School of Economics, Toby Lloyd argues that any serious attempt to address the housing crisis must include measures to change the land market, allowing those who want to build to buy land at a low cost.

It is a concise but penetrating analysis and the author comes up with a few proposals. LVT is not one of them. Since Toby Lloyd, director of Shelter, knows all about LVT, would it be paranoid to suggest that he might have been told not to mention it? There is something fishy about Shelter, which has never spoken for LVT even though the people there must by now be aware that LVT is an essential component of any solution.