Nimbys stop young buying homes, says top economist

HOMEOWNERS are behaving like Nimbys and depriving their children of the chance to buy a house, a leading economist claims.

Dame Kate Barker said local opposition to planning applications must be tackled ‘where it has no substance’.

A shortage of new housing has been blamed for driving up prices and preventing younger people buying houses.

Dame Kate, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, said: ‘The housing system today is unfairly weighted towards those already owning a home, or lucky enough to inherit funds from property ownership. Existing homeowners should recognise the stark truth that if they insist on keeping new development away from them, and on keeping all the profits from higher prices, we will not be able to house our children in a fair manner, and in some cases perhaps they will not be housed at all.’

Speaking at a lecture hosted by the Cambridge University Land Society on Thursday, she added that the green belt should not be automatically protected and that applications to build on it should instead be analysed on a caseby-case basis by councils.

The Centre for Economic Performance echoed Dame Kate’s sentiments, claiming that Britain’s planning system allows ‘Nimbys’ – which stands for Not in My Back Yard – ‘ to employ endless ways to block new developments’.

The CEP – part of the London School of Economics – said in a report that house prices had grown faster in the UK than in almost any developed nation over the past 40 years. Planning laws could be altered ‘to allow developers to compensate Nimbys in an attempt to gain planning permission’, it said.