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Author
Ben Rich
Chief Executive of Radix UK since 2019, Ben is a political strategist, writer and broadcaster. In 2021, he led the merger between Radix think tank and the Big Tent Ideas Festival and he continues to take overall responsibility for Radix Big Tent’s growing programme to promote system renewal.
Former Chief of Staff and Campaign Director for then Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Farron MP, Ben was also previously Chief Executive of the Movement for Reform Judaism and prior to that a Partner at City Public Relations firm, Luther Pendragon.
He has been an adviser to the Home Office and the Cabinet Office, to blue chip companies such as Sky, British Gas, and Kimberly-Clarke, and to successful campaigns such as the one to introduce televised Prime Ministerial debates in 2010 and establish civil partnerships for mixed sex couples across England and Wales.
He is the co-founder of the York Liberal Jewish Community and a coach to the Yorkshire junior chess team.
RBT Housing Commission's Second Report Reveals the 'Blockers' to Housing Targets
Unblocking the Housing Ecosystem, the second report of the Radix Big Tent Housing Commission, published today sets out in stark terms nine major challenges to delivering 1.5 million new homes by the end of the Parliament.
The paper, written by an expert multi-disciplinary panel, goes on to offer a series of practical steps the Government could take to help meet its target.
The ‘blocks’ identified include a failure to understand the economic realities of house building and investment, the lack of skills and infrastructure, and the continuing deadening impact of some aspects of regulation and planning.
The report goes on to call for (amongst other measures) less rigidity when setting the requirement for different tenures on sites, safe streamlining of tall building regulations, reclassing of housing as infrastructure, and action to stablise local government decision making.
Presenting the Commission’s second report - which follows its October 2024 paper, Beyond the Permacrisis – Delivering 1,000 Homes a Day - Commission Chair and award winning housing expert, Alex Notay says:
“Housing is a complex ecosystem and previous attempts to remove the obstacles to development have often failed or produced unintended consequences, as they have been introduced in isolation or not been considered holistically.
“In contrast, this short paper is intended highlight how to catalyse and unblock investment and introduce much-needed dynamism into the sector, by proposing a number of practical and affordable measures that could be acted upon immediately.
“We hope this paper will help inform the Government’s thinking as we move beyond the Spending Review, to maintain momentum toward 1.5 million new homes by the end of the Parliament,” Notay concluded.
The multi-disciplinary Radix Big Tent Commission includes property professionals, developers, investors, planners, academics and others, and is supported by Chapman Taylor, GAA, the National Residential Landlords Association, Shoosmiths, the Vistry Group and the Wates Group. It was launched in March 2024 under the chairpersonship of Dame Kate Barker – author of the landmark Barker Review on Housing Supply - before she joined the Government’s New Towns Taskforce.
Welcoming the Report, Ben Rich, Chief Executive of Radix Big Tent, the system change think tank behind the Commission, says:
“Too much policy is made in a vacuum removed from the practical realities of development. I believe the recommendations in this report will further inform the Government’s drive towards a housing ecosystem that really supports the development the UK so desperately needs.”
