How is England this bad at housing?!

posted on Mar 16, 2026

I watched a TV program last week about zero bill housing. It explored all the ways that some housing is being built or retrofitted to be so efficient- that there's no utility bills to pay. What I learnt amazed me. Passivhaus is an incredible standard, one that ensures houses are built with strict insulation, are air tight and can hold on to heat for days. More incredible still, is that old houses (with appropriate, albeit expensive retrofitting) can meet these standards too!

And yes, this is incredible. Imagine the impact this could have on residents? We're living through a cost of living crisis: groceries, utility bills, transport and leisure cost more every day. Imagine, if the average utility bill of £147 a month could go toward cushioning that blow? Better yet, considering the wars causing skyrocketing oil and energy prices, any excess energy from "zero bills homes" could be fed back into the grid to reduce reliance on foreign energy imports.

At the same time though, watching this documentary was just infuriating. It was a constant reminder of how short-sighted England is. Like with most things, we have the financial resources and the ability to do this to a high standard, but we collectively choose to pretend we "simply don't have the money!" while willingly making our lives worse... All while Scotland are mandating that all new builds meet their Passivhaus equivalent standards, the English lie down in a shallow pool of water and call it drowning. Scotland actually address the issue.

And this is just about house building standards. We're not even talking about the lack of housing, the quality of what we do have being abysmal, and the fact that the new stuff we're building is sometimes worse.

A marginal pricing rant...

My friend and I were talking about solar energy the other week. We were lamenting at how much wasted roof space there is, and what a tragedy that it's not covered in solar. Oil right now is sometimes well over $100 a barrel. The gasses we import are priced at the mercy of a bullish market. All ruinous for the environment, and not even financially sustainable to boot! The result is millions of people across the country that can't afford to heat their homes, something they literally need to survive. More sustainable energy would surely help, right?

But then you learn about marginal pricing... Despite over half of our electricity coming from renewable sources, the gas market still sets the price for our electricity. Marginal pricing is where the cost of a utility is set to the most expensive source. So even though gas makes up 10% of our energy source, it's the most expensive, and so will set the price. Fantastic for the billionaire energy companies, I'm sure! Absolutely fucking obscene.

We're putting people into energy poverty- to gain already grotesquely rich CEOs and shareholders more money, all while our people freeze and starve to death. So yes, we do need more solar... We also need to decouple gas prices from electricity! Then... Then we can cover every roof with solar, and invest the excess energy into the grid. This can be used for public services: to charge our increasingly electrified buses and trains. Our people get to live in warm homes, and our services will have more energy resources. Everyone wins.

A building regs rant

So our houses are shit: they're leaky, theyre poorly insulated and the housing stock we do have is pretty old (we have some of the oldest housing stock in Europe). The UK's economy is frequently touted by its politicians as one of the strongest in the world. How about we use some of that strength to fix our housing stock, then? Apparently, the best we can do is the Great British Insulation Scheme, which has lead to 30,000 British homes at risk of health endangering mold. Because of course, our fantastic "free market" and "small state, low regulation" governance means that we couldn't possibly enforce strong regulations to prevent this from happening. God forbid we have good policy for literally anything at all!

But the fact is, if we had stricter building standards, we could have something like the Great British Insulation scheme that helps people. There's no excuse to let perfectly good energy go to waste, just because our housing stock is poorly maintained and not insulated. Why the fuck do something badly, and end up harming people in the process? Invest in the process! Ensure adequate ventilation is fitted and that all other pitfalls are accounted for. This goes for new builds too... Most our new housing is built by 8 profiteering property developers who are profiting off the housing crisis, and building shite housing to boot.

Imagine if we took the property developer market to task? Imagine if we enforced the strictest of standards and regulations on them? Imagine the quality, long lasting homes we could build for people? We could build beautiful, sustainable housing for first time buyers, large families and older folk. Housing that's built to last, to stay warm and store energy for the benefit of the people living in it. Imagine, having a system that was capable of investing in our existing housing stock? Retrofitting pre-existing homes with good insulation, adequate ventilation, heat pumps and solar panels? Yes, its a big upfront investment, but it pays off in the long run. This short term thinking we're so addicted to has to stop, look at where it's gotten us now!

The housing market...

And don't get me started on the housing market. In my mind, any first time buyer should be able to afford a studio or 1 bed apartment in the city they grew up in. But that's simply not the reality of today's world. The reality? The vast majority of us stuck on minimum wage jobs with no progression, in a housing market dominated by landleaches. Perpetually putting your deposit(s) at mercy of your landleach, who can decide to take all of it at the end of your tenancy for no reason.

Yes, the renters bill has given more protections for tenants... There are new protections for renters like:

• Your landleach will need a legal reason to evict you via a section 8 notice

• Landleaches can only accept rent 1 month in advance

• Rent cannot be increased more than twice a year

But the fact still remains: we're in a property market where it's virtually impossible as a first time buyer, worse still if you're single or not looking to cohabitate with your partner. The average rent for a flat or maisonette in the UK is £1,300, that's £15,600 a year of your hard earned, probably minimum wage- going straight into the pocket of your home's landleach. What value have they provided? What nerve do they have to be asking for 60% of your paycheck for doing literally nothing but owning property? How is anyone supposed to save up a 10% deposit to buy a house with those margins?

Even worse still: there's a 20% chance that you'll be in housing that fails to meet the government's "Decent Homes Standard", and a 10% chance it'll be a threat to your health. So not only are you giving your landleach 62% of your paycheck (assuming you're on minimum wage ), but there's a good chance that you're living somewhere that could make you sick. Along with being poorly maintained, the average private rented home has the among the worst energy standards. You're being sucked dry by your landleach, while also hemorrhaging money because they don't give enough of a shit to make sure that their properties are energy efficient.

Landleaches have started selling up after this bill. Think about it: if 20% of private rental sector properties don't meet the Decent Homes Standard, that must mean those being sold are likely in a dire state. So not only have these parasites sucked our bank accounts' dry for the privilege of being housed, now they're done with us, they've left our housing stock in a state. For those of us who can somehow buy, they're left with housing mired by poorly maintained ex rentals. All while the owning class laugh to the bank with their investments, blaming immigrants, trans people and welfare claimants for this country's woes. The fucking nerve.

Imagine if the government had dibs on all rental properties sold? This could help reduce the average 3 year wait for a council home. Local councils could buy these ex-rentals up, bring them up to DHS, insulate them and have them fit for habitation again. Imagine how much cheaper rent would be with more council homes? More high standard council homes would create market pressure for the private sector to reduce prices and improve conditions (though I'd personally abolish the private rental sector anyway). Imagine having the room to save for a deposit. Imagine not flushing 60% of your wage down the toilet? These changes would be life changing for so many.

Conclusion

The infuriating thing about England, is that we know all this stuff is happening. Sometimes even the government's own research points out these problems. What do we do? Say: "gosh, that's bad. Gee... Sure wish we could do something about it!" and then return to fellating billionaires. All of these problems are solvable, there's plenty of policies (and certainly the money) to address these issues. There's many countries in Europe that have done far better than us. Hell, even in the UK, Scotland have at least made an effort.

All of this is a pattern of decades of austerity, neglect and tabloid lies about public spending... And a populace taken in by the lies of Daily Mail headlines under the hypnosis of hateful bile to distract from austerity. The story we've been told for the last 20 years has been: "we can't spend money! We'll get into debt!". This is a lie. A country's economy isn't run like household finances. How can we hope to invest if we don't spend money we don't have, to reap the reward of said investments when they start paying for themselves (and then some).

For example, the water system in the UK is privatized. In the 80s, Thatcher purposefully underfunded the former public water system, only to then say "Oh my god look at how inefficient it is!", leaving the water system unable to maintain and build new infrastructure. This "justified" its privatisation, and now we're left with among the least healthy waters in Europe as a result. But thankfully, water firms' profits have doubled since 2019, all while pumping literal shit into our waters, in some cases fatally. How is ecological devastation and the literal death of children the best route here?

The point is: lack of investment is the distribution of the spoils of OUR labor to the grubby hands of the super rich. The 50 super rich families who have more wealth than the poorest 50% of the population. All while we're left scrabbling for scraps. Left renting dangerous homes for outrageous prices, stuck living in areas with fatally polluted waters working for next to minimum wage. But this doesn't have to be our future. We can build sustainable homes, we can retrofit our current housing stock. We can overhaul the energy system to reflect the gains of green energy. We can nationalise our water ways, and many other public services. Support for these policies has never been higher. We just have to get out there, and pressure those in power to make that change.